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Home Page: http://www.myspace.com/timhumphrey_djculture Member Since: Feb 13, 2002 Rank: 5558 Average Vote Received: Correct (3.67, 3 votes) Rated 3992 releases, average: 3.87 Location: aquasphere Profile: a little bit about me__ i was always the one to rather stay in than go out. if anyone coined the phrase 'staying in is the new going out' it had to be me. my hobby has always been listening to music, since i was 4-5 years old. I can remember having 2 records, i had blondie's heart of glass and a queen record(does it matter which one?). i quickly took off my brothers records off the fisher price turntable and played them. now in retrospect, from that moment, from those two distinct different sounds, my path in electronic music was set on a long and enjoyable journey, i just didn't know how important that decision was till a few years later yet like one of those childhood moments i remember it like it was yesterday. various things influenced that early spark from when i was 6-8 years old, from my grandmother playing some gospel organ music while i fell asleep(i still fall asleep to music most of the time) to watching the lights on my dad's digital amplifier to see if at any certain point if it would ever get to the next LED light. those are just some examples of what music means to me. i was lucky to be the youngest of 4 children and at any certain time in the day i could walk around the house and hear all kinds of new sounds. My oldest sister got me into Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and the Cure but also was well rounded with stuff like The Who, Afrika Bambaataa, U2, The Smiths and plenty of new wave music. By the time i was 9 i got my first walkman and bought my first cassette with my own my money. I heard 'Opportunities' by PSB at my sisters talent show/lip sync in the fall of 1985 and I first heard the power of a dance track on a PA system in her high school gym. 1985-1987 i started to listen to my first hip hop. Beastie Boys, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Too Short, NWA, Fat Boys and others struck a nerve with my rebelious urban side. Others like suicidial tendencies, tsol, fishbone, red hot chili peppers and alot of other urban street los angeles music influenced my tastes for anything out of the normal during our skateboard thrash sessions. an early example of the proper place for a certain style of music and how i would always be obsessed with having the perfect music to set the perfect mood for any given setting. also during this period i could not escape the latin influences that were everywhere in l.a. from Trinere, Zapp, Madonna, Debbbie Deb, to Shannon and later Expose' and others it would always entertain the dance pop side of my tastes. by 1987 at the age of 11 I started to get really into dance mixes of my favorite new wave songs. that coupled with by 1988 i got my first boombox featuring 2 cassette player and i also got a outboard cd player, I started to edit them into extended and dub remixes and make mix tapes and give them to my siblings, friends and my father who always supported my music tastes which for a few years he entertained my wants being my fan base for a weekly top 20 and music playing sessions while i would radio dj. my brother influenced my tastes alot during 1988-1990. he introduced me to skinny puppy, front 242, siousxie and the banshees, bauhaus and many other influential bands. many days of school would be skipped while i found my mixing sessions much more enjoyable. from 1988-1991 my mix cassette collection would grow giving birth to my hobby as being a physical collector. from early on studying music, reading liner notes, remembering names, labels, pictures and even fonts was the original way pre-internet that i discovered most of my tastes as radio stations and other media avenues were not giving me what i wanted to hear. during those years a few radio stations did round out my tastes for finding music, KROQ 106.7, MarsFM and 91X but I was still wanting something new. by 1991 i started to see techno compilations in my local record stores. the obscurity of the artists attracted me. techno and electronic music seemed as for a music medium ,all about art and substance over image. as new wave music was on the decline, rock music(grunge around then) i inheritantly didn't like and rap moving away from party and towards gangster/money, electronic music was just what i needed and just at the right time. everything about it was perfect for me, i stopped editing tracks into instrumentals because with electronic music i didn't have to! i began looking for the perfect beat. i began looking for the perfect synth and the perfect mood. i could on and on about artists and labels that influenced me from 1991 till now but when you have over 6000 pieces of vinyl, cd and cassettes it's just too hard to single out some to mention specifically. my favorite music style and periods/countries are: ambient: UK/NY/west coast/Belgium/Germany 1993-1994 ambient techno: UK/Belgium/USA/Netherlands/Detroit/Germany 1991-1995 deep house USA/UK etc 1988-now rave UK/Belgium/Netherlands/Germany/US etc 1990-1993 trance UK/Netherlands/Belgium 1993-1995 new wave UK 1981-1988 minimal techno uk/germany/detroit/scandanavia 1992-now industrial 1984-1993 right now currently digging stuff that was not distributed much to the united states or more, los angeles area in the days of pre-internet; ambient house 1990-1993 and italo house songs that are either more downtempo and lush or more catchy and somewhat upbeat but still non cheesy in the days just before house verged on some of the rave sounds. | |
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Influx - Digging Through The DAT Tapes - Unreleased Works - 30-Jan-08 09:48 AM
In 2005 James Bernard released some of his unreleased and virtually lost DAT tapes to some lucky long time fans as James Bernard - Unreleased Works 1994-1999. Like that release was to ambient this unreleased works is to techno. Virtually every form of techno and electronic music can be found here. From spaced out chill-out breakbeats to acid techno, from scientific sounding idm to just post-raved sampled techno all wrapped up from one fantastic artist. Why this release hasn't climbed to underground cult status James Bernard - Unreleased Works 1994-1999 did yet I have no idea why. Unfortunately James Bernard had some label issues and these never saw the light of day. For some of these works would fit right in with the best labels of the techno labels of the time, from R to Apollo, Warp and some of the best UK ambient techno of the time. Dont sleep on these underground gems James dug up for some of us.
Brain Pilot - Brain Pilot - 09-Jan-08 11:40 AM
Brain Pilot's self titled and debut album is an overall, very solid album. After the warm up intro and then the opener of "Feel Real Good" the album really gets to the more serious and directional songs and Brain Pilot's sound at the time. "CNS" begins with a serious more ethereal and deeper doom type melody than the circa Belgium sound of 1990/1 but once past the first minute it adds a detroit melody that even Carl Craig would envy. This is a fantastic melody and the song is really 1994 in all it's glory. "Cortex" continues with a more complex feel, this one is for the dancefloor. Very similar to a Sensurreal type sound of the time. Nice ambient house feel but most definitely still solid techno. "EEG" gives off some autechre type shutter on the idm beats, excellent space dancefloor sounds are found here. The disk winds down very nicely with a collection of ending tracks that are really nice. Brain Pilot almost influences all the good artists from east and west of the time and combines them into their own sound. Just really sublime and a nice predecesor to the fantastic "Mind Fuel" they released the following year. If you like the ambient sounds of 1994 than this is an easy pick up for you.
Martin Landsky - In Between - 09-Aug-07 07:21 PM
Martin Landsky's debut album "In Between" is a tour de force of house and techno dancefloor sounds. Highly underated and my personal favorite of the Poker Flat label it is full of catchy rhythm's, quirky vocal samples, hooks and plenty of very decent bassline grooves. Like a shot out of cannon, "Spy On Summer" jumps you off on the twisted house sound that early Poker Flat was known and loved for. "A Light Breeze" is one of my fav's on the album, the bassline pause inbetween the snare and the kick combined with the sexiest of additional sounds is a perfect early morning dance floor record. A slight break from the more intense, "Dubaholic" re-teaches proper minimal techno to all it's listeners and "Breeze Of The Nightingale" shows just how infectious Martin's sounds are. "Unleashed" gets the album back on the upbeat with a tribal workout of epic proportions. You just wonder why artists dont use vocal samples like Martin does, it adds a house appeal that all these minimal producers could really learn a lesson what works on any dancefloor and not just on a minimal techno dancefloor full of mostly guys. Nothing sterile about these sounds here. The cd just continues from there, from good groove to good groove concluding with perhaps the most memorable melody of all in "Machina (Play It Again)". And there it is again, another proper voice sample just working the tribal house track over without even trying. Finally, after 6 and a half minutes you hear the melody of melodies, deeper than the deep, they just dont get much better than this. Then back comes the voice sample, "Play it again" and you agree.
Sensurreal - Never To Tell A Soul - 09-Aug-07 07:21 PM
Sensurreal's first full length album here. "Nectar" immediately offers you Sensurreal's vision, to just make beautiful techno. Sensurreal wasn't trying to sell records, they expressed just what they liked with their music and everything I have ever heard by them is deep in mood and just plain perfect downtempo techno, pure techno art. My only gripe is that "Styra Officialis" isn't longer! That melody is a ambient techno lovers dream. Still 1:47 worth of music is fine, cd set to repeat fixes that. The original version of "Hardfall" is included here. If you have not heard Hardfall then you have not heard one of the most inspirational and most beautiful underground techno records ever made. I do like the version on the 12" a little more than this more chilled out version. As a whole i do like the follow up album "The Occasional Series" a bit more. Slightly UK, slightly Detroit to give you some description of origin, this cd is easily worth the buy.
Norken - Spring Themes - 09-Aug-07 07:20 PM
Like a breath of fresh air, Norken's "Spring Themes" eases over you like a gentle wave. The sounds are all well done and there is this gentle ambient house thing going on all the way through it. After a decent warmup of "Spring Theme" the real string of very good songs begin. "Fern"'s melody is deep and memorable, think of that really great melody from SAWII, it sounds just like it! This is real good driving music by the way! Every sound is nicely placed in "East". While the minimal songs of Perlon, Kompakt will after time, just fade away like a bad memory ,you have great techno like this. Emotion, presence and just terrific production makes this one of the best records of 2001. Call it techno, call it minimal, just call it well done music.
