Mute ‎– Alistair's Theme

I still miss Alistair a lot.

Sadly Alistair died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. He will be sorely missed by all that knew him & also remembered him from clubbing alongside the thoroughly genuine madcase raver that he was. "Rave in Peace" says Twitch & quite rightly too x

And here's more history. The record was recorded in Alan Benzi's bedroom studio in Kersland Street in Glasgow at some ridiculous hour in the morning after Orlando had been DJing (at Tangent in the Arena I believe). Those were the days!!

A bit of history with this one. The eponymous Alistair, who is pictured on the reverse of this 12", was a notorious regular at Glasgow and Edinburgh nights, such as Pure. Not a trainspotter, though he tended to hang around next to the DJ booth, contorting his face and waving his arms around to the music in a very idiosyncratic manner (He once almost got a right hook from the DJ!). This record is a tribute to one of clubland's real characters.

One of Orlando Voorn's best releases - a superb three-tracker which puts the formulaic nonsense that passes for "techno" these days to shame. Although loosely based on the Detroit sound, Voorn goes beyond any such limitations to create an astonishing EP of complex & quirky, yet instantly appealing space funk electronics.

Alistair's Theme is a blinding and completely unpredictable track with deliciously weird and tripped-out sound manipulations, smooth chords and a continuously changing kick drum.

Raw is just that - a quite short, but wicked track with banging Chicago-style drums and acidic sounds.

Frases offers more tweaked-out noises, paired with some soaring & beautiful pads and melancholic melody snippets.

While this EP easily rivals Voorn's output on Fragile, Night Vision, ESP and Buzz, it drowned somewhat in the flood of records he released, making it a "forgotten gem" of sorts. Still, this is a remarkable release from one of the techno scene's most creative minds, up there with such classics as "Edge Of Self Control", "Solid Session" and "Midi Merge". Highly recommended to all the space cadets out there.