Universal Indicator ‎– Universal Indicator Blue

I remember picking this up in 1992 and absolutely loved it. In Glasgow at the time most of the club nights played progressive or garage house which was boring me to tears.

Then along came some nice new experimental music like this release. On the A Side Definitely A Head Doer is exactly that-brilliant! But the jewel in the crown is Psychic Turbulence, some crazy swirling analogue sounds, enough bass to cripple most sound systems, and an aggressive 303 line to take you away.

Unfortunately I never heard this played out on a big system but me and my mates had many a house party and loved the blue, red, and clear Kosmik Kommando releases.

Class.

This ep (and the other three in the series) is simply awesome. Quality acid that doesn't take itself too serious, and will tear up any floor worth its salt. Doesn't sound dated to me. Stick it on and squelch and bleep your way to paradise.

I don't often pop up in these places and probably won't again for a very long time. But I'm compelled to clarify a few misinterpretations. The tracks on the blue and the red were composed deliberately to exploit lofi sonic charcteristics and analogue signal processing of synths and drum machines thru audio inputs of certain other analogue synths. You have to remember that these were made at a time when there was nothing else around to resemble that style and that they defined a whole genre of faster acid and techno music with deliberate use of distortion - Notably on the drums as well as the B-Lines. At the time everything was 120 -128bpm and these were rocking out at 150bpm. Of course they sound rough and dare I say dated - but that's because so many producers took the formula and refined it later on. Without these benchmark recordings a whole scene might never have happened and that is why they are cherised and traded for silly prices. I played these recordings at a party in London, November 2005 and they tore up the dancefloor so that's not bad for a bit of blue and red grunge is it - that are probably almost as old as alot of people writing about them... MD

As the rest of the Universal Indicator series, this record is disturbing. The tracks are too short and/or do not seem to evolve much at all, are not very well mastered and half of them are of the disposable, filler kind. It is still an ok release, though, if one sees it as a DJ tool. Grungy Acid sounds and overall good ideas that have simply not reached maturity.