Our Wednesday selection:
P.A. Presents – Flight Acid/Salicylic Stimulator (U-TRAX, 20 UTR QDM7/8/9)
Utrecht label U-Trax welcomes 90s legend P.A. Presents for an enhanced re-release of his first two releases on this label, namely ‘Salicylic Acid’ and ‘Flight Simulator’.
Ironically P.A. Presents aka Peter Aarsman is the only artist on U-TRAX that actually is born and bred in the city of Utrecht. Even more irony lies in the fact that he hasn’t lived in the city for 25 years and has only recently returned home. He was an early player in the hip hop and boogie scenes and long before house landed in Europe he was playing disco and Italo which helped establish him as a truly vital DJ talent. The two reissue EPs presented here marked his production debut back in 1993, both of which are hugely sought after and pricey techno records on second-hand markets. In 2019 he returned to the music scene with two new EPs on U-Trax in the form of Swirling Gas and Sax Madness and new releases are planned for 2020.
The release kicks off with ‘Mesopmorph’, an effervescent, nostalgic cut with a deeply buried techno rhythm that eventually takes over in tribal style. ‘Pop’ is a brilliantly tense and dense track wired up with fizzing synths, chattering claps and haunting effects as well as pending drums, then ‘Theme’ is cosmic industrial, with powerful hits and metallic sounds married to searching laser synths.
‘Vera S’ is classic 90s techno with mad vocal sounds and frantic synth lines darting about the mix, then things grow deeper and headier on the stripped-back intergalactic journey that is ‘Flight Simulator.’ The timelessness continues on the dancing analogue drums and hi-hats of the classic Detroit styled ‘Experimental’ and ‘A Gasp’ before ‘Vexillum’ brings more warm solar winds and molten techno grooves whilst ‘Long Metal’ closes out with pounding kicks, skewed synths and a real sense of space travel.
These are essential early techno tracks that sound as fresh and relevant now as ever and come with remastering and restoration from Thee J Johanz.
Tracklist: P.A. Presents – Flight Acid/Salicylic Stimulator (U-TRAX, 20 UTR QDM7/8/9)
01. Mesomorph
02. Pop
03. Theme
04. Vera S.
05. Experiental
06. Vexillum
07. Flight Stimulator
08. A Grasp
09. Long Metal (CD and Digital Bonus Only)
10. Ducking (Cassette Only)
Buy release: Vinyl // Digital // CD
Listen on: Spotify // YouTube