Jason Amm has pooled together his years of experience, and arsenal of equipment, to produce this three tracker of harsh, environmentally unfriendly, acid.
[Purchase] I’ve never been too detached from the records I bought in my youth. True, a lot of ’em have been living in my boyhood bedroom for several years now gathering dust; but this is simply because I’ve moved around a bit in a last few years and haven’t decided to try and truck ’em overseas. A few early favourites have accompanied me on the travels. Some electronica, stuff like Invasion Planete, blippy material like Skanfrom and the Canadian Solvent. I liked Solvent aka Jason Amm and Suction Records on first hearing it. I remember buying early Suction stuff when it came out in Spindizzy Records in Dublin. Solvent’s sound has been very synth orientated and melodic. His tracks have had a good natured feel to them, with vocoders being employed here and there. Not everything was happy computer music, some of it had a tougher electro edge; but there was always a melodic note to the compositions. For years Solvent has released his catchy, even dancefloor friendly, electro sound on Suction, Ghostly and Morr Music. But, it seems this Zimbabwe born Toronto resident has been lured to the darker side of electronics, the nastier, harder and altogether more violent side. For his latest 12” Solvent finds himself on Minimal Rome‘s MRX series with three tracks of raw acid: Latch, Fasten, Secure.
The coarse tones of “Latch” open the record. Solvent, armed with his heavily modified x0xb0x, serves up a cold slab of mechanized acid. A dark distortion pummels the listener, not in a relentless pounding but in a sharp and abrasive slap. The track was born out of more than an hour of acid abstraction, meandering and creeping through soaring metallic highs and dredging bass lows. Just shy of eleven minutes its a bit of an odyssey, the first step in Solvent’s odious lapse. “Fasten” is whirling 303, descending into abject squalor as 606’s bleed and industry hammers forth. In no time the walls are dripping as the track unleashes itself with a 4/4 fist. Grotty and derelict stuff for this clean shaven Canuck. The entire B-side is dedicated to the marathon “Secure,” all sixteen plus minutes of it. Bass and hi hats come together before Amm pours molten 303 all over the track. A destitute and depraved torrent of machine snare and tweaking belligerence sees Solvent fully descend the spiral into the subterranean darkness of modern acid jack.
The acid resurgence is plain for all to see, or hear. A great deal of the second wave of 303 and 606 fanatics are from North America; Jamal Moss, James.T.Cotton, D’Marc Cantu, Traxx and Jared Wilson to name but a few. That’s not to say the US is having all the fun, with European artists like Elec Pt. 1 and the Automatik-Datamatik label putting out some excellent acid. Solvent has utilized on the classic machines of house to make these tracks, 303, 606, 707, bit of 101 and a Pro One. Amm has pooled together his years of experience, and arsenal of equipment, to produce this three tracker of harsh, environmentally unfriendly, acid. For years Amm has been on the nicer side of electronic music, video game inspired electro pop being his mainstay. Latch, Fasten, Secure turns the dial on the Anti-Solvent, Solute if you want (excuse that). Solvent has been tempted into the audio back houses that lie within his machinery and it looks like he enjoys it in there too.
Latch, Fasten, Secure is out now on Minimal Rome. [Purchase]
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