Underground Resistance

With the benefit of hindsight I can't agree with the comments about early UR stuff. Apart from The Final Frontier, which I think is still one of their best tracks, Nation to Nation and early James Pennington and Drexciya outings on UR a lot of the early releases were not quite so groundbreaking as their later work.

Initially they were influenced by the whole Rave phenomena of the period and 'hardcore' which the Techno pioneers disdained. Many of their early ep's owe as much to the sound of Essex or Utrecht as that of Detroit. Listen to their first LP 'Revolution For Change' on Network Records.

UR hit their stride with World to World and since then almost everything they have done has been timeless..

I confirm that UR is still able to be astonishingly creative. The soon to be released Interstellar Fugitives double LP proves this statement. It is understandable that listeners are now demanding the best from UR and Mad Mike as they have been used to so many masterpieces released by this label. But the best is still to come. Mike Banks is inspired and the younger artists that the label is pushing forward have undeniable potential.The electric soul is alive more than ever !

I think UR is still a great label and is still launching new talents and new music. It's still very innovative but as people -at this time- is always looking for vintage stuff, the recent records don't get the gratitude they deserve.
But BEWARE ! UR is creating tomorrow !

Have to agree with both comments. UR's back catalogue is untouchable. Techno at it's absolute peak. There's just too many classics to know where to begin. The main problem is that it doesn't seem to know where to go in the mid 00's. There are so many people doing the 'underground' techno thing that it seems a bit lost. You could argue this is when techno needs the label most as there is so much meaningless dirge released week after week by people with nothing to say. However The labels sound has stagnated without any question. There was a lot of talk of Mad Mike starting a new phase for the 'movement' after the episode with Sony and Jaguar. This doesn't seem to have materialised though and any records I've listened to recently have just been average funky electro numbers or techno with those 'heart to heart'(dire eighties tv show for anyone who doesn't remember) sounding strings! Scrap the last seven or so records and your left with undoubtedly the most amazing story of 1990's techno music. Hard aggressive deep beautiful lulling jazzy industrial robotic human and most of all cosmic. If they get back to form there won't be a more celebrated return in techno.

For a while I could agree with the above statment, but for me, after the release of UR-048 "The Swarm" and then "Revenge Of The Jaguar", Underground Resistance took a real turn for the worse.
Recent releases have lacked the freshness and uncompromising attitude which in my opinion made the label so strong and brought it such a huge underground following. UR is no longer a "buy on sight" label as it was for so many years.

UR is the greatest record label in the world. From the very first release to the latest one, the standard has been set to an almost unreachable level, that the majority of other labels find hard to live up to. For me UR is the epitome of Detroit. Whether it be the harsh rhythms of early releases such as The Punisher, The Fury or Riot or epic classics like Knights of the Jaguar, Illuminator and First Galactic Baptist Church. UR is out in front of most by miles. If you don't own a UR record I suggest that you go out and buy one straight away.

No Hope, No Dreams, No Love,
My Only Escape is Underground.

Underground Resistance - Somewhere in Detroit