Humanoid - Stakker Humanoid

I fuckin love this record. One of my first forays into acid house. Krafty Kuts and the Plumps are worthy remixers and definitely deliver the goods on these remixes. But I have to admit the original is still the best. Hard to believe that it first surfaced back in 1988!

Stakker was the collaborative work of video artists Mark McClean and Colin Scott.
Stakker needed someone to engineer on the music for what eventually became the Eurotechno video and got Brian Dougans to work with them.
Stakker sent Morgan Khan a video tape of their graphics which had some of the sound that Scott, McClean, Dougans were developing on it.
Morgan invited them to his studio in Ealing London and here Colin Scott, Mark McClean and Brian Dougans recorded Humanoid. The Evil Otto sample “Humanoid” from the "Berzerk" videogame, which provided the name of the track, was recorded by Dougans in an arcade on Ealing High St.
Originally called “Humanoid” to be put out by Stakker through Morgan Khans label Westside Records, it was released by Morgan as “Stakker Humanoid” by “Humanoid” to avoid copyright issues.
A dispute had arisen between Dougans and Scott / McClean and before the record was in the shops Stakker and Dougans split. It was the end of their working relationship. It had lasted just over a year.
The soundtrack for Eurotechno was later totally remixed and overdubbed with new sections added by Colin Scott and Simon Monday in the digital studio that Colin Scott and mark McClean had set up in the Goldcrest building in Great Pultney St in Soho.
This soundtrack is on the Eurotechno video and on the CD recently released by rephlex.

There are a few people who say that the original mix of this cannot be bettered and in the main I would agree. However...The Smart Systems Remix on this release is an excellent track in its own right. I can remember hearing this for the first time in a record shop and basicly the whole shop jumping up and down. There was records, decks and flyers everywhere! I had no idea at that point it was actually a remix of this famous tune, just the occasional "humanoiod" vocal, but everyone was sampling everything in those days..Imagine my surprise when I managed to nab my copy! Anyway, in 92 this was about as hard as it got, a real departure from the normal hardcore stuff I loved dropping this in my sets, and still do! and hey as a bonus you get the original mix on the A side.

This record is a definition of early acid house and PURE 80's electro. Vocoded vocals, computer samples and lot of 303 riffs in brake 909 drums...great classic choons!

One of those records where the radio edit is better than the full length version. The radio mix peaks at *just* the right moment with the "humanoid" vocal sample coming in and causing delirium on the dancefloor.
Somehow the 4.59 mix misses the boat on that crucial aspect and shoe-horns an unnecessary 4 bars in there and ends up sounding *wrong*.
It becomes a good lesson in how NOT to arrange a track, but its genius anyway , so what the hell........

Still a total classic and as fresh as the day i heard it at a warehouse party in blackburn in 88. It's awful to hear updated versions of it remixed though, as it is a timeless keystone in house music history, and defines itself in that place like a rock.
If you compare the original to the music of today, you will gasp at the amazing production and the pure energy thats in this track, which always leaves you breathless when you play it out at high volume. It's also the only REAL acid track to break the british pop charts, which is a hell of an achievement in itself.
Indeed like someone said earlier, you only have to look at the work that Dougans and Cobain wrote after this masterwork under the guise of FSOL, it's almost like a precursor of what was to come.

Diggers rating 10 out of 10

This track defined the way for techno music. Way ahead of its time. Look what the guy behind this track went on to do? Amazing stuff. Still play it out now - it rocks the house every time! Bring it on.

The original still rocks, jep, but I really like the 2001 Plump version also and even better is the Krafty Kuts interpretation, which reminds of Josh Wink's "Higher State Of Consciousness", but better! This is old and new skool ACIIID at its best, yum yum!

Forget the remixes - stick with the 12" Original. It may be ten years old, but it still stands up in 2002. One of the tracks that got me into dance music in the first place....