Remember back in the early nineties, when electronic music was just starting to really get large, and new, mind-blowing stuff was coming out what seemed like every week? Stepping out of a record store with the new Aphex, new Leftfield, Black Dog, Orbital, and Underworld records, all at once? Remember how it felt when you listened to them in succession, that feeling that this kind of music was going to take everything over, that you’d never have to listen to boring dreck ever again? You were going to conquer the world, and you had the perfect soundtrack, right?
Well it may not have turned out that way, not yet, but Signal Generator remember what it was like at the time, and have released a perfect 4-track EP that encapsulates the sound and the attitude of that time. As much as electronic music as a genre is one that looks forward into the new, when a release comes along that looks back, it really is a breath of fresh air. It’s a gentle reminder that not everything has to change the world, that some things in this world are fine like they are, and one of those things is early-nineties techno.
Square Wave is a gentle journey, twenty-two minutes of mostly blissful, non-threatening techno. It bleeps and blurts in the right places, the beats jump and jiggle, and the bass rumbles appropriately. And while this may sound like a pan, it is not –very few artists are making retro-techno like this anymore, and it’s a sound that is sorely missing from the scene today. A full-length from these gentlemen would be most appreciated.
Square Wave is out now on Occasional Records.
