Do you like to bang? Like, real hard? Because let's not beat about the bush here, this is hard techno territory, and we're on a one way ride to no compromise city.
Detroit's Alan Oldham aka DJ T-1000 has a long history with techno, stretching back to its inception. As a radio DJ in the late '80s, Oldham used the airwaves to break the emerging techno records to his home town.
As a comic artist he was responsible for some of techno's most memorable artwork, notably with Derrick May's pivotal Transmat imprint and Holland's Djax records.
In '92, Oldham joined the legendary Underground Resistance outfit as a DJ, when co-founder Jeff Mills left to form his Chicago-based Axis stable.
Perhaps UR's trench warfare mentality rubbed off on Oldham. The end of the '90s saw Oldham running his own Generator and then Pure Sonik labels, holding a firm and uncompromising hard techno line.
Unlike his Detroit compatriots who've diversified - Carl Craig and Stacey Pullen [nu-jazz], Derrick May [almost complete silence], Richie Hawtin [abstract experimentalism] - Oldham has adopted tunnel vision.
A viewpoint reflected by this album's artwork, which pictures a solitary Oldham trudging with record box, towards a sprawling metropolis. Presumably, he'd play hard club techno even if he was "The Last DJ On Earth" to do so.
Hence the 'banging' references then. The album is dominated by purist European techno types: Ben Sims, Access 58, Oliver Ho, The Advent, Marco Passarani and that other famously uncompromising DJ, Dave Clarke.
The master of the hard groove, ex-URer Jeff Mills inevitably pops up, only in his club/ rhythm based Purpose Maker guise. Your ears instinctively pick up Mills abstract grooves however, which stick out of the hard DJ fodder that surrounds it. Ben Sims' 'Metaphysical' protrudes too, on account of it's sampled latin vocals - a rarity within this instrumental mix of banging beats and alien textures.
Even Mills has a go at vocals with his sexual 'Call Of The Wild'.
All this purism seems doubly odd given the obvious breadth of Oldham's vision. His love of art shines through in his track titles like 'Warhol v Basquiat,' while he's often spotted online extholing the virtues of gentle but atonal jazz classics like Eric Dolphy's Blue Note lp 'Out To Lunch.' It's just a shame his music vision isn't quite as expansive.
Clearly Oldham's view is that DJs have a job to do, and that's to bang the box, hard. There's no electronica excursions, electro boogie, Basic Channel dub backwaters or Digital Hardcore noise. This is about techno, pure and simple. And as he builds to a melodic climax, dropping Derrick May's only studio outing in almost a decade - his Jaguar mix - it's hard to begrudge that.
