Second Phase ‎– Mentasm

Mentasm is good, no doubts but I think Mind To Mind holds up better today. I would have no hesitation playing Mind To Mind in a set now. It's worrying, moving, thumping but yet far more tuneful. I remember hearing it for the first time some 20 yers ago and I had never heard anything like it and have heard little like it since. A steadfast favourite.
Mentasm is good but I'm 37 now. There was once a time and now isn't it.

The best tune of 1991 by miles. I still love this. Dark, energetic techno that spawned a billion imitators, but no equals. I love the anticipation as it builds to the track's best part: the squelchy bit straight after the breakdown. Fanastic stuff.

The Hoover sound itself was not created by an artist it came as a factory preset made by the sound designer Eric Persing he called the preset "What The" meaning "what the fcuk is this" when Eric Persing made the factory presets for the Roland Alpha Juno the guys at Roland Japan laughed at the "What The" preset in a humorous way.The reason why this preset adopted the name Hoover is not because of Mentasm but simply because the pitch of the sound rises & falls just like a real Hoover,for Mentasm Joey Beltram & Mundo Muzique used the preset sampling it into a keyboard sampler it might of been the Roland W30,but the sound itself is a preset made by the sound designer Eric Persing who is the owner of Spectrasonics!......If this preset did not exist well i will let you work than one out!......

What can be said about this track that has not already been said? Hey, it even inspired me for my user name! It brings back so many memories of mad times in London in 1991...
Strangely, though, it took my a while to appreciate this track. The first few times I heard it (Rage, Crazy Club, Sterns...), I did not like it very much. Perhaps because of the state of mind I was at the time, I found it somehow too hard and disturbing, as I was more into dreamy stuff like Shades of Rythm "Sweet Sensation" or hands in the air like Cubic 22 "night in Motion". Mentasm for nothing of the sort, just pure, dark and uncompromising energy. The most disturbing it made me felt like I was slipping on ice on the streets during winter when hearing it, very disturbing, the music was that bad... Maybe I wasn't ready at the time...

Mentasm was the joining of TWO genius, both coming from Brooklyn and the Nu Groove surroundings. On one hand, there was Beltram, and on the other hand, there was Mundo Muzique, that also issued the all time classic "Synth it/first power" under the name Revelations.
Mundo always had this inimitable melodic synth style especially manipulating tb303, and released lots of great tracks until mid 90'.
Here with Mentasm, it was the perfect combination of their talent at their best : fierce energy of the drums and techno bass from Beltram, and the pure magic of acid melodies from Mundo. So bad any of them did go further in that direction since.

To correct V-agent..Beltram was the founder of this sound and Human resource copied it for the Dominator track from Beltram! The Dominator record also says a thanks note on the sleeve to Beltram for the sound as they admit they copied it and smartly they even got bigger with it.
The story goes Beltram didn't like this as the sound from that period on was copied a million times, and he didn't really got the credits for it. He started to 'diss' the Dutch music producing scene from there on which was actually still so up until the late 90's...Ironically he did a remix though of the Dominator track which became one of the best mixes of Dominator. Anyhow, Beltram is the genius behind Mentasm and that is a fact, credits for him or not...:)

For 1991 what a hard track.
Beltram and Mundo really made a new sound with "Mentasm".
Joey told us in a Discogs forum that the first to ever use the Alpha Juno 2 "What the..." hoover preset was Mundo Muzique.
Joey found this sound interresting and put this preset throught the filter of an analog gear (he decided to keep the secret about this synth, the only clue we had is Mark Bell from Lfo used a lot this trick with other synths on his first album) and then, obtained this crazy "Mentasm" sound.
The other side "Mind To Mind" is as melodic and emotional as "Mentasm" is a techno killer.
One of my favourite record ever, the Yin on the A side and the Yang on the B side.

Also if you play the record backwards, you get the sound that was used on Plexus with Cactus Rhytm.

Mundo Muzique & Joey Beltram a.k.a Second Phase are the true innovators of the notable 'hoover' sound.

The Mentasm sound is also referred to as "hoover", the most popular sound in rave next to the 303. Used everywhere from techno to hardcore to hard house. It all started right here...