Christian Kleine :: Electronic Music From The Lost World 1998-2001 (A Strangely Isolated Place)

Well, not strictly speaking new. Electronic Music From The Lost World 1998-2001 may be a bit of a mouthful as a title, but it does at least concisely describe what you’re getting here: an exquisitely curated collection of previously unreleased recordings on archived DAT tapes from an era when equipment was becoming ever more accessible to budding artists with no industry affiliations, installing itself in many homes and turning a phalanx of innovators bedrooms into studios.

For its first release of 2018, Ryan Griffin’s label takes us to A Strangely Isolated Place that’s distinctly different from any other that has come before it. Held over from last year after multiple pressing plant issues with other releases that rapidly became the bane of the label and contributing artists alike comes what is literally an igloomag dream come true: a new album from Christian Kleine.

Well, not strictly speaking new. Electronic Music From The Lost World 1998-2001 may be a bit of a mouthful as a title, but it does at least concisely describe what you’re getting here: an exquisitely curated collection of previously unreleased recordings on archived DAT tapes from an era when equipment was becoming ever more accessible to budding artists with no industry affiliations, installing itself in many homes and turning a phalanx of innovators bedrooms into studios.

It was in this period that this magazine was founded and began publishing. The heavyweight influences of labels like Warp, City Centre Offices, Morr Music, n5MD, Clear, Neo Ouija, Merck and a whole host of others was a rich seam of innovative new content Igloo Magazine mined extensively. The technical limitations of such equipment provided fertile soil that seeded a level of creativity evident in the multitude of different signature sounds attached to these artists.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Kleine’s work should be able to hear the echoes of Hermann and Kleine’s classic Kickboard Girl in the opening track “Promise,” all shuffling breakbeats, distorted, crackling fx and layered, chimes, twangs shimmering pads. It’s exactly the kind of comforting, angora-clad fuzziness tinged with wistful and reflective melodic refrains of classic Morr Music-era Solvent that he’s so well known for, and it runs through the veins of almost every track on this near seamless collection of long-archived gems.

The clonk, stutter and trill of “Computer Error” underpins layers of hazy, hypnotic pads and muted vocal samples. “Weep” is an avalanche of tumbling rhythms, synthetic strings and short-circuiting keys that sounds for all the world like an early prototype for something off Autechre’s Oversteps. Strains of Arovane can be heard in the pulsing lens flare and spacious reverb of “Somehow” and “Charcoal” interwoven with fraying strands of glitch and clattering percussion that were so pervasive at the time.

There’s ISAN and Solvent cuteness plastered all over “Dory,” which also loops a sample of Butthole Surfers’ “Sweat Lodge” made famous by Orbital in the intro to “Satan,” and “Charcoal”’s innocent, twinkling melodies and neon glowing keys that surely informed artists like Lackluster. Amongst all the nostalgic and atmospheric tracks here, the solemn and introspective “City Nights” emerges as the collection’s true tear-jerker, with sweeping, smoggy synth pads bathing the ricocheting breakbeats in neon and amber.

Electronic Music From The Lost World 1998-2001 is a truly fine example of what Warp dubbed Electronic Listening Music years earlier on their Artificial Intelligence compilations, and while countless labels are still releasing strains of this music—n5MD or the Macmillan Cancer charity supporting Touched being two particularly fine examples—it’s really wonderful to encounter previously unheard music of this caliber that’s simultaneously from and so evocative of that genre-defining era.

Beautifully presented as always by the label in a lush, matte-laminated gatefold sleeve and pressed on exquisite translucent green vinyl.

Wish you were there? Embrace the new old.

Electronic Music From The Lost World (1998–2001) is available on A Strangely Isolated Place.