There’s a conversation on Facebook right now, started by Dan Curtin, about how to categorise a certain strain of techno, notably that made by certain British artists in the late 80s, early 90s. Something obviously influenced by Detroit, but which took on a life of its own, went deeper and more melodic than most, and elicited such a depth of feeling that, in my opinion anyway, the drugs were very much major players in inspiring what came out of the studio. Although it’s all techno, there are many different takes, and we could sub-genre until we niche ourselves into infinity. Dan Curtin says that this music has “a uniquely English sound” and I agree with him up to a point. The Dutch were at it as well though, with labels such as Eevolute, and also Djax-Up-Beats. It’s probable, however, that they themselves were under the spell of what had been coming out of The UK up until then. Anyway, here’s a great example of what was coming out of The Netherlands in the early-mid 1990s. ‘Flow Charts’ has all of the warm, analogue credentials that the UK tunes do. Emotive and deep, with a bittersweet positivity emanating from the grooves, there’s more than a whiff of bleep as well. The funny thing is that Ismistik wasn’t even Dutch, it was Norwegian disco fiend Bjorn Torske, in an early phase of his sonic existence. Which is nice.
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