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12"
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SPL 014
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"The noise is now even more corrosive, with layers of digital winter snow blanketing the high-speed breaks. There's a new-found sense of space, as evidenced on the bleak dub-scape '100 Years of Solitude'. Downpour has pushed even harder at the accepted boundaries, crafting an EP that dares the noise-crowd with its labyrinthine structure, while also blasting the armchair listeners with it's uncompromising approach to noise and disruption. Sounds come at you from all sides, confusing the mind and senses, perfectly mirroring modern urban life."
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2LP
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SPL 012 LP
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Double LP version, last copies.
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CD
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SPL 012 CD
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"With 1996's Signal Series, Chessie's Stephen Gardner staked out a distinctive spot for himself on the electronic landscape. Chessie blends live bass playing with heavily syncopated beats gathered and looped without samplers or sequencers, tempered by a rigorous aesthetic more in line with the chance composition techniques of modern classical artists than with your typical jungle or IDM producer. The final result is music far removed from the strictures of the dancefloor, a soundspace that conjures images both oceanic and gritty, a rhythmic train ride through that long, dark tunnel. The new Chessie album, Meet goes so much farther into the unknown that reasonable points of reference become harder to find. Tracks like 'Brake Test' and 'Nowa Huta' move into a slightly beatier realm, bringing to mind artists on the Karaoke Kalk label, while cuts like "Between Asleep and Awake on SP7591" and 'Follow Me Home' defy analysis, plunging the listener into fractured electronic sound wells that recall the avant rock Laika if it was produced by 4 Hero at their darkest. Yes, all the 'right' influences are there in the grooves, from Cage to Satie to Autechre, but Chessie is clearly onto something quite different and special here. Where Signal Series stunned with its iconoclastic brilliance, Meet handily surpasses it in every measure. It is an amazing, enveloping album: a journey by railroad into the clanking, reverberating night."
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LP
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SPL 05 LP
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LP version of this 1998 release.
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12"
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SPL 06
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"Malcolm's a young Bay Area producer who's developed a unique sound from strands of jazz, soul, house and techno (of the Detroit variety), all stamped with unique and quite warped sense of space and style. Some obvious reference points are the space jazz of Derrick May, the reduced dub of/house of German labels like Playhouse or i220 and found-sound tom-foolery of Herbert."
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CD
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SPL 005CD
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First full length on Drop Beat and a major entry in the world of American-based experimental, drum'n'based-flavored sound. "Chessie is the working name for Virginia resident Stephen Gardner, a young and talented multi-instrumentalist who began his music career several years ago at the age of 16 with cult anti-rock group Lorelei. Bass is Gardner's main instrument, and it was his depth-charge deep dub-influenced basslined that gave Lorelei it's signature sound. Electronic music was always an interest, with a particular leaning towards modern classical electronic composition and the sample-heavy works of groups like Moonshake and Laika... It is on this organic base that Gardner adds live bass and guitar, creating a mesmerizing mixture of edgy beats, unsettling soundscapes and often improvised melodies. His ongoing college studies into composition and improvisation clearly pay off in tracks that cannily blend structure with chance, the familiar and the startling. It is truly a new music -- one that refers to the currently popular strands of jungle, post-rock ad dub, but moves well beyond the usual facile and superficial 'experiments' into a more ambitious and far deeper realm."
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12"
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SPL 04
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"Oakland-based H.S.O. has swiftly overturned the Bay Area drum and bass scene with its very individually-styled orchestrations of heavy bass, complex drum sequences and psychotic sounds. The music springs from the minds of three very different young men, who go by the names of DJ Sifu, Flemme Fatale and dawgisht. Combining advanced structures and programming that remind one of Plug or the Possible label artists with a strong dancefloor appeal, this first H.S.O. EP is a bold statement of intent, and a world-class entry into the experimental jungle arena."
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CD
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SPL 002/3CD
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CD issue combining the above 2 vinyl releases.
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