Woody McBride ‎– Balance

I concur with the previous reviewer. As much as it is scarsed in layers and sequences, Woody's tracks never go on for too long so chances are you won't get bored. His title as one of the absolute kings of the 303 sound is well deserved here. From stomping, hard acid tech (the whole A side + Lawrence), to more mental, tweaked out, linear and minimal techno with lively and remarkable acid sequences. May I also point out Being There (Late), which sounds like the most psychotic early Jeff Mills track on Axis (let's take Growth, to give an example), spiced with mental acid synths. That track in particular isn't really banging, but has that really sci-fi feel while maintaining Woody's trademark minimal acid feel.
No need to go in a track by track analysis here. If you enjoy old school acid, be it banging and hard, or more sophisticated, repetitive and minimal, you need this. It's not as wild and hard as Woody's earlier work under the 4D moniker, but then it's not as monotonous as something like Plastikman's debut album where the minimalism is more emphasized. "Balance" has that great characteristic, in that it combines the more aggressive approach to acid techno, with more abstract, atypical use of acid, something you can also hear on releases by Spectral Emotions, amongst others.
Regardless of how you look at it, nothing can hide the fact that this is a double pack of extremely well done acid techno, by one of its prominent advocates. Top notch stuff all the way, and fans of the "mid-west" sound or the early Drop Bass Network releases should not be without this.

One little curiosity: since this vinyl plays from the center out, the run out (that is, the run in) grooves of the D side have the following etching - "Balance may be found or it may find you ¤ it may be unready for you, you may be unready for it ¤ if you push - it pulls, if you pull - it pushs ¤ and so around and around you go until you balance"

This is perhaps my favorite Drop Bass release of them all. It employs a style that I never particularly liked much in techno (as a whole), but on this release it just sounds great - minimalism. It's not so much the kind of minimalism that became standard after 1995, though. These tracks are sparse, but they also aren't like thirteen-minute epics that do the same thing from beginning to end. They are concise and use minimalism effectively. And not every track sounds the same, there are refreshing changes of flavor and only a couple display outlandish similarities. It's bound to happen on a 2x12". I've long since forgotten (I don't think I ever even knew them by name!) the names of the tracks, but there's one that sounds like a gong going "bong" and thus became locally known as "the bong song", and another that sounds remarkably like two robots having sexual intercourse without any lubricant in the gears - basically some really groovy, unique stuff! I give many kudos to Woody for what to me is probably his best release ever. But I've heard only about a third of his released material. It's not as though I was following Woody around the country like a dead-head! A very unique and tasty venture in the old days of techno drudgery.