Various: Ripples of Dub

Further evidence, as I was saying last week, of the proliferation of ambient/dub/electronica compilations in the '90s. This one kicks off with an Autechre track, and just look at how many compilations they've featured on. Someone's been making a tidy income from licensing…

This was put together by Just Create Records of Sheffield, now defunct after only ten releases (another Sheffield success story). It's interesting in that has a mix of a couple of 'stars' of the genre — Autechre and System 7 — complemented by a host of almost unknowns. My standard technique for identifying 'unknowns' is the total number of plays the artist/band has clocked up on Last.fm. Trace Melon [sic] have 117, Picos de Europa 41, and The Beat Alliance have a magnificent nine at the time of writing. Autechre have over 4 million, but it's the unknowns that give this album its value.

If there was one way to sum up how these tracks sound, it would be that a lot of them bear a resemblance to Tangerine Dreams Thru Metamophic Rocks, updated with a slightly more danceable and regular beat and less guitar solo.

One more thing: lots of ripples, not so much dub.

MusicBrainz entry for this album Listen to this album in full at Last.fm