Aqua Team - DJ Stingray 313 (Micron Audio)

 

Title: Aqua Team

Artist: DJ Stingray 313

Label: Micron Audio

Cat Number: 

Genre: Electro/Techno

1: Serotonin

2: Straight Up Cyborg

3: Star Chart

4: Silicon Romance

5: Potential

6: Wire Act

7: Binarycoven

8: NWO

9: Mindless

10: Counter Surveillance

11: LR001

12: It’s All Connected

This triple vinyl remastered rerelease gathers together two WeMe records from the noughties and puts them back out into the world on Stingray’s own Micron Audio. And, as ever with Stingray’s own output, the boundaries between techno and electro are blurred. The latter lays the groundwork while the former steps in to shake things up from time to time. In any case, this specific fusion produces something unique within the two genres and is uncategorisable at times. It’s machine music Jim, but not always as we know it. Compositions which draw the liustener in by virtue of their sheer weirdness include the jazzy ‘Star Chart’, which mixes the sound of a double bass with spiky keyboard flourishes in order to evoke a futuristic jazz ambience. Nice! ‘Straight Up Cyborg’, a ghostly evocation of android steps, ‘Silicon Romance’ goes down a similar route, before giving way to ‘Potential’, which opens with the spoken word “You have a destiny and now is your time to fulfil it.” This is one of Stingrays more militant sounding tracks, along with ‘Binarycoven’,  which seem to exist in a zone between the slower ones already mentioned, and the faster, more recognisably electro offerings; such as ‘Serotonin’, ‘Wire Act’, ‘NWO’, Mindless’, ‘Counter Surveillance’, LR001’ and ‘It’s All Connected’. Something else these compositions have in common is their high tensile rhythms and wire-like beats. None of the tracks here penetrate the five minute ceiling, all being, I imagine, custom made for the rapid fire, gangster DJing style that Stingray is the undisputed master of. Don’t expect sunshine either. This is an album cloaked in shades of grey and darkness. Finally, everything here holds up as well today as it no doubt did when first released, and still sounds like the future.