Various - Bip-Hop Generation [v.1]

A very fine compilation here from a new label out of France calling itself bip-hop. It has gathered for itself an impressive roster of contributors to the first of its new quarterly series of compilations. This one was released in November of 2000, and by now a second volume should soon be available.

There are six artists presented here, each contributing around ten minutes of music apiece. From the USA we have Marumari, who starts things off in a very pleasing manner; stylish beats and catchy hooks are laid upon his two tracks in fashionable form. Similar to Boards Of Canada/Autechre/Frog Pocket (oh my, what have I just done?) in their structure, these two tracks get the disc off to a splendid start.

Next on board we have Germany's Schneider TM, who sounds a lot like Oval on his single track here. The sound is very full, with a substantiallayering of noise over top of a rhythmic backbone. He displays a fine sense of sound stretching, compressing and manipulating over the course of his nine minutes on this disc. From Italy we then have Massimo, who impressed us with his Minimo release on Staalplaat late last year. Here he offers up two more tracks of start-and-stop glitchiness, all timed to a wonky metronome. Goem is next with a nine-minute track called "comp negen", which, with its patient analogue tweaking, is the most subtle and dramatic piece on the compilation.

France's Ultra Milkmaids, previously unknown to me, quietly go by with a mystic meditation.

Last on the disc is the United Kingdom's Phonem, who provides us here with two upbeat and complex numbers. They're filled with derivatives of drum 'n' bass, though it's hard to link that music to what's going on here. Plenty of rapid-fire drums and such, and much of it is indeed in-your-face, but still with a step back taken for experimentation.

I appreciate the fine liner notes included in the compilation, which set out to give an informed background of each of the artists involved, along with a mission statement from the label itself. Too often in this genre things are stripped bare - one often yearns to know more information than is given - so it's nice to know the geographical and recording background of the contributors here. A duly impressive first release from bip-hop, and I do look forward to see how the series progresses in the future.

[Vils M DiSanto]

Marumari opens the compilation with “A Girl I Met At The Rest Stop” and “The
Computer Kid”, two warm dreamy tracks of ambient beats and tones, the second
being slightly edgier than the first. Schneider TM contributes one longer track
featuring clockwork mechanical rhythms and crackly distortion with increasingly
loud whirs and drones. Massimo’s first track, “Tonali”, takes a looped glitchy
throbbing industrial fan like bassline and adds a continuous high-pitched tone
over it. His second track, “Where’s Your Heel”, features a similar but more
urgent bassline, this time adding high-pitched digital blips over it, eventually
mutating them into a similar rhythm to the underlying throb of the bassline.
Goem contributes “Comp Negen”, a long track that resembles a minimal version of
Massimo’s “Where’s Your Heel” with added static feedback. The Ultra Milkmaids
track, “Mystic 2K”, is a cut-up collage of sound snippets assembled and looped
in a way that makes the sounds effectively become the instruments. Phonem’s
“Data Control” is 11 minutes of shifting ambient textures tied together with
underlying rapid-fire metallic beats. Phonem’s second track, “Don’t Vote For
Your Enemies”, closes the compilation with a similar track to “Data Control” but
that is slightly busier and more abrasive, adding an slowed down acid house type
keyboard line.

A solid debut release from Bip Hop that will establish this series as one to
watch. Recommended. The second in the series is released in March and features
Bernard Fleischmann, Arovane, Warmdesk, Kohn, Wang Inc. and Laurent Pernice.

Paul Lloyd
8th January 2001

There are some really good tracks: Marumari's "A Girl I Met at the Rest Stop", Goem's "Comp Negen" and Phonem's "Don't Vote for Your Enemies". Massimo contributes two interesting and very sparse tracks, built from clicks, cuts and pure oscillator tones, good but hard to listen to if you've got problems with tinnitus and high frequency tones.
The tunes from Schneider TM and Ultra Milkmaids on the other hand mostly feels like filler tracks, and Phonem's "Data Control" is rather irritatingly flatly frenetic. "bip-hop generation v. 1" is a competent document of where uncommercial electronic music is today.
henrik str.mberg