In (faint) praise of the artwork for Drum Club's Everything Is Now

This week, I bought myself Drum Club's Everything Is Now on CD. I owned it 25 years ago and it got nicked. Fancied a bit of format nostalgia.

Look at this cover (above). The bold patterns, the trippiness, the blobbiness, the suggestion of a face. All very tribal. Only thing is, once you open up the inlay, things get... different.

Inside front cover. So far so good. A nice pretty picture of a record box frolicking in a field, some weird shapes. The text at the bottom is a bit difficult to read, but things aren't so bad, right?

Pow! Things take a curious direction. Dark pink blobby text against a green background. I *so* remember owning this CD; it's all coming back to me. Squinting next to our hi-fi unit in the living room wondering if my eyes were broken.

On the next two pages pictured above, we even have the muddy pink overlaid on the eye creature. Even for the druggy days of Megadog and Tribal Gathering, this was a, er, bold design choice.

Are these inlay credits? Are those blobs letters? I respect the commitment to narrowing the paragraph for easier reading, but this feels like playing Scrabble in the middle of a food fight. I *will* read this, dammit.

Actually, momentarily things get easier. The orange arrives like a ray of light, as does the pretty Technics record deck nestling in some grass. Although the orange phases awkwardly against the green, the gangrenous pink is over. Except... except...

What do we have here? This is a proper old school CD inlay - you can write off to a mailing list. Oh joy! Let's see the form, shall we! *eyes fall out* This further pink-green tomfoolery might be horrific, but how CUTE are those dots?!

Maybe the pink wasn't the best choice. Yes, I've taken the mickey, but this most alien of techno albums wouldn't be the same with any other artwork. I scanned this inlay for a good reason: I am hugely fond of this difficult artwork. 

Back in the day, great techno was all about being obtuse: wonky beats, anonymous producers, dark smoky rooms, wild originality. This Drum Club CD is all about that. An album for the weird party kids. 

So I want MORE pink scraped from the innards of a hippopotamus. I want more weird blobs. I want more credits you've got to make a real effort to read — and you do make the effort, because you love it. I'm so glad I ordered this CD with the strangest of designs.

Final thing. You may have spotted it along the way but credit to designer Ged Wells who's still going strong at InsaneEmporium.com (see picture below). The bold patterns, the trippiness, the blobbiness: it's still there. Drum Clubbing forever.

Further Fats: Chosen Words – D is for Design (2010)

Further Fats: Aphex Twin's new Cheetah EP: a sweet talkin' design (2016)

Ten amazing albums that influenced my taste in music

My blogging schedule's gone a bit sideways because the Covid-19 lockdown has, like many other people, left me quite out of sorts. My capacity for creativity is pretty limited.

So I'm going to steal something I did on Facebook. And then we'll get back to the best-of-1995 thing.

My brother Grum tagged me in a Facebook challenge to name ten albums that influenced by taste in music. Here's what I posted, edited to make it more interesting than wot I said on Facebook. 

1 – The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld

I remember playing this on my cassette walkmen in my tent on family holidays. So surreal to be in some random Welsh field and to get this amazing, otherworldly collages playing in my young ears.

2 – Transglobal Underground's Dream Of 100 Nations

This strange mix of UK techno and African tribalism and things from other planets. "Watch the skies! Keep looking!" I went to see TGU a couple of years ago and they were phenomenal.

3 – Drum Club's Everything Is Now

The album that truly made me fall in love with the bass drum for bass drum's sake, an appreciation that served me well in many a club. Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump....

4 – Orbital's brown album. 

Here's the one that changed everything for me. My Damascene moment. The album that hardwired techno and all its variants into my brain for life. And look at me now. I'm **twitch** FINE.

5 – The Irresistible Force's Flying High

Mixmaster Morris's hypnotic ambience lifted me into heady clouds of dubby ambience: I haven't quite come down since. The kind of album that lives in my veins. I also liked things with circles on. See also Banco de Gaia.

6 – The Goons' Ying Tong Song

No, really. This is cheating because it's an EP not an album, and it was a family hand-me-down rather than something I bought myself, but it's worth it because THIS IS WHAT MY BRAIN IS LIKE ALL OF THE TIME.

7 – Adamski's Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy

I have to say, this is NOT a good album, despite the presence of Killer and NRG. But Adamski's DIY 'keyboard wizard' approach introduced my little Smash Hits brain to the concept of the bedroom studio a long time before doing that was a viable option.

8 – Underworld's dubnobasswithmyheadman

An obvious one for other fans of 90s techno, but what a strange animal at the time. I was already a fan of their 12-inches and I keenly devoured Junior Boy's Own's early output. All that gorgeous Tomato design work too. Cor.

9 – LTJ Bukem's Logical Progressions series

Drum 'n' bass was always a trip, and even now the thought of this series gives me tingles. My few short years as a drum 'n' bass DJ were some of my happiest creative times. The best sound, the best live experience, and the best to mix. 

10 – Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Pretty obvious, this one. That bass in Ageispolis. Oooooo.

And so many more, of course. Ten will do for now. 

That's it. I'm creatively spent. I've run out of words. Flong. Pathoot. Clibbibuuuu. See? It's just noise.

I'm off for yet another night of stupidly vivid lockdown dreams.

Further Fats: Chosen Words: B is for Boss Drum (2010)

Further Fats: Don't be rattled: it's just drum 'n' bass (2016)

Best electronic albums of 2016: thirteen

13 – Kowton – Utility (Livity Sound)

When Joe ‘Kowton’ Cowton shook off the grimier elements of his sound, he was probably going against the grain. Instead of kowtowing (see what I did there) to the bass-crushing street sound scene, he produced Utility: put simply, an album no-frills techno.

This ain’t clever: no Snares McSnareface tomfoolery here. Get a basic loop, throw in some percussion, let the machines do the work. The sound is not varied: indeed album highlight Loops 1 could be a remix of album highlight Some Cats.

But that’s the charm. It’s simple and it positively zings out of the speakers, I remember listening to Drum Club back in the day. They weren’t afraid to let a mechanical bass drum sit on its own, thwum thwum, pacing in isolation. A drum pad for the sake of a drum pad. I’m shivering just thinking about it. This, exactly this, is what draws me to Utility.



Scroll all of the best 2016 electronic albums by clicking here.

Chosen Words: B is for Boss Drum

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and associated "facts"

Boss Drum is term of worship for the transcendence achieved through the bass drum.

Repetiton and loops are important elements of dance music, and bands like The Shamen and Drum Club utilised hypnotic, rhythmic bass drums in their music.

The most famous loopy band, Orbital, named themselves after the M25. The M25 is the only motorway which forms a mobeus loop, much to the annoyance of those whose cars are unable to drive upside down and/or drive forever.

After the poll tax riots of 1990, the Conservative government tried to trap all the world's repetitive beats in the Tower Of London. Following protests from ravers, headed by bands like Orbital, Dreadzone and Phil Collins, the loathed Criminal Justice Bill became a firm act of law and everyone has been miserable since.

The boss drum is the most important button on a drum machine. All other drum noises are simply weak variations.

Top five most repetitive songs:

- Badger Badger Badger by Weebl
- Daft Punk's Around The World (man, it goes on forever)
- Doop by Doop
- I Know A Song That'll Get On Your Nerves
- There's a Hole in My Bucket

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

A ticket to ride: bumbling into MC Tunes and putting the green suit away

She bounces up to me like Tigger on catnip and starts squatting on the dancefloor. Her bum is pointing in all directions at once and, with alarm bells clanging in my head, I scan the room for a precautionary mop.

She says to me, "You need to dance with your hips. Like this."

For a scruffy haired loser who shuffled around in a painful green suit and wine red tie, a dancefloor was very much like a barbeque is to a penguin; it was a new thing to me and the heat was causing chafing.

It's the Herbal Tea Party in mid-90s Manchester and I'm being taught to dance by an enthusiastic stranger. I must have looked as stiff as a door if I needed a punter to dive in and rescue me from complete humiliation.

The Tea Party stands now as a monster club night in darkest Hulme that has never enjoyed the continuing exaltation of its bigger counterpart, Manchester's Megadog. It's a shame, especially for HTP's very own Dr Frankensteins, co-creators Ian and Rob Fletcher.

Thanks to them, electronic music bowled me clean over, especially when:

(a) I bought Orbital's brown album purely based on an amusing review in the NME;

(b) as a hack, first interviewing one of the Fletchers (I forget which one) but being drawn by a One Dove record playing in the background. I'd never heard proper, creative dance music before, barring the KLF, The Orb and assorted chart rave bands.

There isn't much about the Tea Party on the internet near me. A few forum mentions, but then this gem of a photograph (above).

It's a ticket, posted by Armcurl. It shows (then) South Manchester's finest DJ Justin Robertson lined up beside Charlie Hall and his Drum Club. And there they are. Resident Rob Fletcher plus Inner Sphere Space which, if I remember rightly, was his brother Ian.

Okay it's just a ticket, but this photo represents my bumpy (and grindy) ride into the clubbing world.

I never really became 'cool'. I was frightened by the owner of Birmingham's Beyond club once because he offered me a beer. And I once bumbled into MC Tunes, who threatened my very life just by casting me what he thought was a casual glance.

And I never got into tea either, despite the best efforts of Mr Scruff to make it the tipple of choice for Manchester clubbers.

But I did learn to dance a bit, and the Herbal Tea Party turned a scruffy haired loser into a shaven-haired loser with a penchant for Higher Intelligence Agency, Drum Club and Sabres Of Paradise. Thank goodness I never needed the mop.