Artist: Adrenacrome
Title: Trio
Format: 12" Single
Label: Adrenacrome
Catalogue Number: AD001-6
Year of Release: 1997
Notable Features: Two locked grooves; some tracks pressed in reverse - i.e. they play from the inside of the records outwards; all tracks are discrete - the needle never runs from one to the next.
Tracklisting:
A1 Trio (6:26)
A2 Poison (1:52)
A3 Mental Crisis (6:17)
B1 Tunnel (1:37)
B2 Adrenacrome (6:22)
B3 Looped (0:41)
B4 Running (6:48)
A bog-standard collection of minimalist techno from Marc Acardipane, appearing on a subsidiary of the label Planet Core Productions, which he co-founded. Acardipane is still banging 'em out, see this website for a rather amusing photo of Marc in a bomber jacket with 'HARDCORE' emblazoned on the back. Listening through (which was hard work, what with having to work out where the next track started from) I was reminded mostly of Plastikman but without the cymbals of the TR-909. In fact, only the closer, Running, featured any cymbal sounds at all. It was by far the best tune on the record, as there was an odd bass noise slightly out of phase with the 4/4 bass drum, which did indeed give the impression of running to catch up with something. If Steve Reich had done boring techno, it might have sounded like this.
Of the short tracks, Poison is forgettable, but Tunnel is interesting. It loops the kind of sound used to show that a robot was thinking or a computer computing in 60s sci-fi shows, and then overlays the sound of a duck being strangled in a cave. Raised a smile anyway.
Note that I didn't include Looped in the short tracks, as it's one of the locked grooves, and therefore could play indefinitely. I imagine that 41 seconds is how long it takes the average person to get bored of it.
The other locked groove was more subtle, and comes at the end of Mental Crisis. It's so subtle, I must have had the track on for about 10 minutes before I noticed the same loop was playing over and over, which serves to highlight that nothing of interest happened up to that point. Having said that, in amongst the 4/4 drum loop and quite synth sound(s?) of the locked groove itself, there was, low in the mix, a sample of a needle being lifted off a record - which shows that this guy is probably a lot funnier and more talented than either his website or the majority of this record would lead you to believe.
