Various Artists
Mr. C Presents Subterrain 100% Unreleased
[End]
Rating: 7.8
As night clubs go, London's the End is never going to make it up there with
the glittering cokey-dusty likes of the Paradise Garage, Studio 54, or such
amyl holes as the Tunnel or Sound Factory. Nevertheless, to a tightly
passworded clique, the End is one of the few clubs that can boast the birth
of a genre. One Saturday a month, the End hosts Subterrain, a techno-house
night, promoted and lorded over by erstwhile Shaman, Mr. C.
Okay, we all recall the Shamen's Cockney Sparrah "knees-up-Muvvah-Brarhnn"
techno-pop vom that was "Ebeneezer Goode"-- a novelty record that horrifically
besmirched the band's previous immaculate, if underselling, back catalog.
Though we all pretty much blame Mr. C for that cack, we shouldn't immediately
dismiss him as some terrifying dismantler, a nemesis live and direct from
cracked vellum pages of a medieval bestiary. No, before he ruined the band
that was the perfect amalgam of acid house and neo-psychedelia indie rock,
Mr. C was a huge player in the London techno scene and probably one of the
people without whom Primal Scream would still be peddling their jangly
fringed arpeggiated pop.
For as one of the residents of South East London's the Clink club, Mr C
encouraged dark tunes of monstrous techno that flipped the beatific Balearic
vibe on its smiley carapace and probed its chemical innards for potent
venomous sounds. That the Clink was, as its name suggests, a former prison
adds further credence to the legends that clubbers, cabbaged by the venue's
prescription-only music, promulgated. The Clink eventually closed its doors,
but its vicious infection had longed since passed into the cultural genome.
Dark tunes soon took over the nascent hardcore scene and gave Nico and the
rest of the No U Turn massive a reason to act evil.
In 1995, Mr C, with his long time partner in slime, Layo Paskin, moved
operations to the End and established Subterrain. Originally loosely conceived
as just another techno club, the open design of the clubbing space accidently
promoted a fusing of the main room's techno with the house booming out from
the secondary chamber. And the kids enjoyed this soundclash. From then on,
Mr. C and the resident DJs provided housed-up techno and birthed the
tech-house hybrid.
Though tech-house is never going to be the next mega-compilation-selling
trance (hoover-heavy, tweakin' hard house will be), it has some notable
practitioners. The duos known as Circulation and Get Fucked have both released
exemplary tech-house, while Peace Division and Bushwacka! are repeatedly
collared for techy remixes.
Since this somewhat throwaway style is not gay enough for the mainstream (how
about that for a paradox?), it appeals to both the techno trainspotters (your
average Jeff Mills fanatic) and those house heads for whom hard house's 150bpm
tempos are just too slamming, and who don't buy into the Jazz FM/Joey Negro
nu-disco movement.
So how fitting it is that the club that spawned this bouncy chimera should
cash in. Charles Webster, the brain behind Presence's All Systems Gone
opens the set with a none-too-adept mish-mash of Spanish guitars, deep house
beats-n-bass and some token industrial clanks and whirs. This, by the way, is
very bad tech-house and should not be taken as an example of the hybrid.
Chicago house-master Derrick Carter, happily makes us forget the awkward
Webster track by offering "My Tiger is Ravenous" under his Tone Theory
moniker. The Roland 303 squelch and the high hats fizzle with nanoprobe
intensity.
Mr. C deftly follows Carter's cybernetic romp with Gene Farris' (another
Chicago convert!) "I Can't Stop Dancing," which just lives for the
artery-bursting snares that only the Roland 909 can produce. Layo and
Bushwacka! introduce a boisterous bunch of breakbeats for some extracurricular
tooling around, and name their cranked-up sound "Kipping." Get Fucked's Nathan
Coles teases old-skool hip-hoppers with "Plip Plop You Don't Pop" and manages
to reference both the Sugarhill Gang and Mr. C's old label, Plink Plonk, at
the same time.
Mr C's "Electronische" more than makes reparation for his
"Ebeneezer" past with its Neu!-ische atmospherics and strapping bass line.
I can't help but be caught in the inescapable undertow of the transition
from Impossible Beings' "Special Brew Chic" to James Barth's (in reality
Swedish techno master Cari Lekebusch) "For the Lords." "High quality gear"
is the echoing cheer!
The lone problem I have with this disc is that it moves too fast. Mr. C's
mixing allows us to hear only four minutes or so of each of the 16 tracks
before distractingly slipping into the next track. What I love about
tech-house is the extended groove and how I can snuggle right down in it
and feel my biorhythms adjusting their bpms to the groove. Four minutes
isn't long enough for me to get deep in it. Fortunately, for me and those
like me, this set is available as four vinyl EPs. If that's not so appealing
and you still want it deeper, order a copy of Richard Harvey's User
compilation or Circulation's double-disc set, Colours, and save
Subterrain 100% Unreleased for nocturnal highway journeys, Sunday
afternoon ironing, or wistful reminiscences about legendary clubs of
yesteryear.
-Paul Cooper