Magnetic North

There were moments on this label that were simply never seen anywhere else and probably never will again. This label was a heady, hedonistic leap into the unknown and the people who took the leap benefited greatly from having had the courage to take that risk. No person who has ever stood next to a PA stack when one of these heavyweights came barreling out of the speakers aimed straight for your head swinging for business will ever forget those moments. No-one except the instigator behind this brief, but amazing moment in Techno history it seems. The moment transitory success came knocking, this label was left out in the cold to die an uncaring death.

For shame. It speaks volumes about the blind weakness of man when greatness is so casually cast aside for nothing more than mere disposable paper and even more disposable people. But history is always the great equalizer. This label is universally held in the highest of regard and seen as a pioneering high point within Techno culture by a large and varied cross section of society rarely, if ever seen by this kind of work. The greedy shortsightedness of the man who buried it to follow a fool's errand is looked down upon as a terrible mistake. Nobody can avoid their mistakes forever and only true greatness can cheat time. The father of this label will always only ever be second to his creation he turned his back on, while his difficult child has changed the very nature of Techno.

Long live Magnetic North.

Seminal early 90's label, run by The Loudmouth of Techno. Its first release was accompanied by a statement of intent-type insert that read: "We all want honest, inventive, exciting music. Sounds we can keep forever, that last, that touch us every time we hear them, tunes that we can trust. True music. And truth in music." - now you might think "good grief, that sounds a wee bit pompous and cheesy", and you'd be right, in a way. But two decades on, the records still sound great, and you realize those words were actually entirely justified - take any fashionable tech house record and compare it to the Lambda EP, to cite just one example, and you can instantly tell which one has more heart and more balls. Magnetic North was sometimes harsh and abrasive, sometimes weird and trippy and wonderful and strange, and sometimes lush and blissful - but always uncompromising and, well, honest. Classics include, but are not limited to, Pure, Analogistic Warrior, Planet 42 (later remixed on Labworks), Sub Version, Alkaline 3dh, and of course the mighty Rattlesnake, one of the greatest acid tracks of all.

The label burned too bright to last, and when DC's career took off with the Red series, the label was closed down. A retrospective compilation was released in 1996, and there's a lot of great music on it, but they could have done a better job with the track selection, and it felt like a quick cash-in in the wake of the success of the "Archive One" album. Still, the label's legacy lives on.