Photek: Classic or Dud?

Yeah, I'd have to agree.

Title: Baltimore
Label: Photek Productions
Artist: Photek

Pounding vintage Bluenote biznizz picked up by Dom & Roland, Tech Itch, Teebee and Friction and all courtesy Photek.

I have this track on an MTV drum n bass compilation I inherited, and it's okay. I've had a couple MRI's done and some of the sounds are similar (though I still think the MRI experience is more intense).

photek = sort of underrated at this point. remember, for a while he was pretty much the only person not using a palette of straight amen and think breaks.

pale scrawny white guys are always always always classic

Hahaha this might be why people aren't holding him in higher esteem.

I think the main reason was that he came off as so dry and serious.

I don't remember "Relics", but "Presha III" and "Jump (MK2)" are both pretty good.

Goldie's best moments often = Rob Playford's best moments. Whereas Photek's best moments = Rupert Parkes imagination.

Yeah yeah yeah and it's all Nico Sykes too and blah blah blah. Maybe Rupert might have benefited from an engineer.

wrong and insane

A lot of his stuff is fantastic though, yeah. I'd say his golden period was '95-'96 - ie. the golden age of the "Metalheadz" sound but just before Modus Operandi.

nothng but piles of asian drums on top of one another. nothing to do but twitch like a jellyfish on a butcher block

wow, probably the truest thing i ever said on ilm

some dude called "the law" assembled this all photek 93-97 mix. makes a pretty damn good case for photek's brilliance.

01.. Photek - Third Sequence - Astralwerks [1996]
02.. Studio Pressure - Jump Mk II - Certificate 18 [1993]
03.. Goldie - Still Life (Photek Remix) - Razors Edge [1995]
04.. Studio Pressure - First Sequence - Photek [1994]
05.. The Truper - Vol 1 A - Street Beats [1994]
06.. System X - Mind Games (Dub Mix) - Entity [1994]
07.. Photek - Consciousness - Metalheadz - [1994]
08.. Photek - The Hidden Camera (Static Mix) - Science [1996]
09.. Photek - Ni Ten Ichi Ryu - Science [1997]
10.. Studio Pressure - The Water Margin - Photek - [1995]
11.. Photek - One Nation - Sanctury [1997/2007]
12.. Phaze 1 - Natural - Timeless [1995]
13.. Aquarius - Drift To The Centre - Looking Good [1995]
14.. Code Of Practice - Infiltrate - Certificate 18[1995]
15.. The Truper - Vol 2 B - Street Beats [1994]
16.. The Sentinel - Pulse Of Life - Basement[1994]
17.. Therapy? - Loose (Photek Remix) - A&M [1995]
18.. EZ Rollers - Rolled Into One (Photek Remix) - Moving Shadow [1996]
19.. Everything But The Girl - Single (Photek Remix) - Virgin [1996]
20.. Photek - Rings Around Saturn - Photek [1996]

go geddit here: http://drumandbassmixes.com/thelaw.htm

is burial the new photek?

yes ... sort of

photek >>> burial

he's a little bit bigger relative to the scene than photek was, and he's more "outside" the scene too

i want to say he's the new squarepusher but squarepusher was actively adversarial w/ drum and bass, whereas burial likes dubstep & 2-step, he's not trying to tear it down w/ something new.

and again, i think he crossed over more than squarepusher did. squarepusher probably sold less albums than goldie.

Rhythm & Sound ^ (Hyperdub + Skull Disco) * (2008 / 1996) = (Metalheadz + Photek Productions) ^ Basic Channel

thanks to this thread revive i went on a search for my copy of "something else...the bleeps tune" and i can't find it. i wanted to hear it again before coming onto this thread to proclaim its greatness.

that equation is breaking my brane

2008/1996 = breaks?

mind, one of my favorite things about 2008 is the return of breaks in non-traditionally steppy musics

Maybe... I was just writing gibberish really. Try listening to T-Raenon if you've got a headache. Hearing that for the first time, while reading an interview with him, where he mentioned that Black Dog's Bytes was his favourite record, made me a fan forever.

yeah the vibe of bytes is pretty much untouchable.

i think a digital music player needs to be invented where you can just drop in equations like that and then it plays them for you.

i'm going to echo mr dan perry from upthread and point out that BDP and detroit techno refs made a lot of people dislike him!

gibberish or not it is quite appropriate on a photek thread. mr science of breaks himself.

why would that make people dislike him?

i dunno. ask a british.

I don't think the Artificial Intelligence and Drum'n'Bass lot mixed that much at the time, though I don't remember there being any animosity there. Anyway I got into both via the lowly NME so I'm not well-qualified to cover this...

i dunno why the dislike either, other than part of the pre-existing sniffiness re "intelligent" tag

^^ this used to be a big deal! 300-post threads and stuff.

Pretty sure most of the backlash was Reynolds' inspired and I think he was mostly sniffy that Photek seemed so desirous to distance himself from jungle and instead align himself with detroit techno. Plus (at the time) he considered Photek's brand of d'n'b kind of dull compared to ragga/jump-up/what not. No doubt like everything else he's changed his mind half-a-dozen times since.

las time we did this i rolled out the reynolds line and got schooled: 'pparently early photek is pretty jump-up-ish.

im wondering how reynolds will treat post-1998 developments in 'energy flash 2: the blog years', because this argument over 'intelligence' has sort of gone away.

yeah photek started with mashy amen like everyone else but lol at outsiders who saw the switch from this to other areas as a duller direction given how boring and ubiquitous that sound seemed by late '95. still baffled by why so much seems to hang on what reynolds thinks tho.

http://www.lifesacharacter.com/cartooncharacters/rodneymoose.gif

i knew that was it, but "intelligent" totally misses the point re black dog and photek because we can talk about mystical alchemy or breaks-surgery but to me that confuses how we talk about the music with actual visceral impact. it all seems to hedge on this idea of class. like if you didn't use amens and looked towards detroit, you were upwardly mobile or something which is just ironic.

too bad there wasn't an equivalent late 90s detroitification of garage by home counties suburbanites eh

LOL

too bad there wasn't a late 90s ?-ification of detroit techno

anyway i show you a mix and this is the thanks i get

the mix is cool. i'm surprised by how non-photeky some of the earlier tracks sound (amens & divas, etc.).

there's also this one, as mentioned on "favorite dj mix" thread

Source Direct versus Photek
Download

Call & Response : Source Direct
The Physical : Photek
Computer State : Source Direct
Touching Down : Photek
Snake Style : Source Direct
Black Domina : Source Direct
The Fifth Column : Photek
Concealed Identity : Source Direct
Technical Warfare : Source Direct
The Water Margin : Photek
Love & Hate : Source Direct
Fusion : Photek
Capital D : Source Direct
Mind Weaver : Source Direct
Enemy Lines : Source Direct
Complex : Photek
Black Rose : Source Direct
The Seventh Samurai : Photek
Wanton Conduct : Source Direct
Ni Ten Ichi Ryu : Photek

http://drumandbassmixes.com/hades.htm

^^ there's some good, good mixes on that page

it's an interesting contrast hearing the two next to each other, considering how much ballyhoo people made about source direct being photek clones. photek comes across as the very much clinical breaks technician. spare, pure, surprisingly funky. source direct sound incredibly rigid and dark. the 2-step is so stiff it starts to push into into cristian vogel territory. (tech itch did some tracks like this)

having mentioned tech itch, it reminds me of a question i've always wanted to ask. just out of curiosity, what was the last drum and bass album you bought? i mean, the last one before you hung it up and said "fuck it, this stuff is over".

mine was ram trilogy's "molten beats"

full-length: probably breakage, a couple of years ago. didn't really like it. otherwise, just a macc 12" i think?

Photek's Solaris, assuming that counts

i never bought that many artist albums anyway so it's actually 'Saturnz Return' for me ha ha never did actually buy a copy of 'Mysteries Of Funk' (but did pick up 2nd hand copy of 'The Prototype Years' last year). you may be disgusted to know the dnb album from this decade i came closest to buying was John B's 'Future Reference' (also 'Malice In Wonderland').

i bought "mysteries of funk" and i was always really, really impressed w/ the sound design on the tracks but i never really liked listening to it. i was always like "whoa, grooverider optical did an amazing engineering this". i remember "rainbows of color", "starbase 23", "rivers of congo", "560 degrees" and "imagination" all being really good. also maybe "where's jack the ripper?" ... anyway RIP big man, at least it's not a turkish prison.

there's some great stuff on "prototype years"! "city lights", "deep inside", "silver blade", "subway" etc. but you NEED the 2-disc version with the VIP mix of "still' on the 2nd disc. incredible! i think grooverider in the liner notes he calls it "more devastating than the borg" LOL nerd!

i wish i still had my copy with the stereo cover that switched between images of grooverider's face and an x-ray of his skull

hey, did anyone hear that last venetian snares album? i didn't hear a word about it but the tracks on his myspace sound pretty great.

arrrggh don't even mention that guy

I bought that Hive/Gridlock album that Jess repped for. It's good enough, but not as amazing as he'd said.

Grooverider's in jail in Dubai right now, ain't he? LESSON 1: DON'T BRING DRUGS INTO THE UAE!

Before that it was the Soundmurderer/SK-1 thing, I guess. If mixes count I've bought a number (some Chopstick Dubplate stuff, various Offshore/Clever things, that Knowledge Introspective cover mount mix.)

mixes don't count, no

Oh wait I might have bought a Bong-Ra album since either of those if that counts.

you didn't have to buy the album, the videos are on youtube

Haha silly me then.

i think mysteries of funk is a great album as is the prototype years (i have the version with the holographic cover, but not the double cd). i still buy calibre albums. i think the last two-step dnb cd/mix i bought from the late 90s was the stakka and skynet comp on audio blueprint and the matrix album. there's probably others i am forgetting.

Oh wait I bought that Digital Dubzilla record for $1 from the Tower sale.

:-o

>:-o

^^ revolted emoticon

@ bong-ra

Haha I like the EP collection of his that I bought, but the other albums are uh not so good (plus terrible terrible covers.)

I bought Fanu's album the other week. Still digesting it. Kinda Photek X Inperspective stuff.

Before that it was Kryptic Mindz & Leon Switch's album, which is 3/4 great, like Source Direct's Controlled Developmentsp X Lexis (there's also 1/4 typical 2-step tracks for the floor).

Planning to write a piece maybe on their alternate takes on breakbeat presha revivalism - it actually pretty cleanly plays out the Photek vs Source Direct HOW CLOSE WERE THEY REALLY?!? angle Vahid raises above.

NOT SO CLOSE AMIRITE

Um, the conflation is something like saying Russia and China have a common border, hence they're the same. I think there's a point of convergence, but yeah the core of their work is different. I'm only just picking this up now though. You're right re the relative rigidity of Source Direct, and I think this is part of the real value of techstep qua techstep - that joltiness, where the groove just seems to trip up and vault you forward and over things. Photek has this too though at times, but what is really clear with the contemporary breakage stuff is that you can have super-complex beats and still have quite a flat or smooth rhythmic sound, and I think Photek's work also shared that vibe at times as well. A lot of it's actually not to do with the beats but the relationship between the beats and the synth riffs and stuff like that. The best techstep is very blocky, not in the sense of being a single block but in the sense of the music sounding like an assemblage of blocks (the rhythm, keyboard riffs, the bass) all knocking into one another constantly.

So to put it this way: Photek was devoted to complexity not rigidity (but at times he was rigid); Source Direct were devoted to rigidity not complexity (but at times they were complex).

Back on topic, "Consciousness" is still one of the most amazing tracks ever. Imagine a whole album like that eh.

I still dispute the suggestion that Photek was way out on his own with his programming though (although his best work is very distinctive I'll grant you). That argument is a bit like people who say "oh my El-B (or Steve Gurley) beats were just so out there and revolutionary compared to the rest of 2-step garage", when in truth you're talking about first amongst (a lot of) equals status.

Not much to say here, but very gratified that this revival has been so popular. If only my Acen revival a month or so ago had proved to be so, sigh.

there's only one SD track i ever went mad for and that's 'Call And Response'. Hidden Agenda just as good if not quite as prolific (didn't get a deal with Virgin).

a point of convergence ... Photek was devoted to complexity not rigidity (but at times he was rigid); Source Direct were devoted to rigidity not complexity (but at times they were complex).

well said ... except i get hung up on the fact that, as you pointed out, there were many other producers you could rightly say were devoted to complexity. 4 hero and lemon D are two that immediately comes to mind, i'm sure there are lots of others we could figure out after five minutes of thought. and as far as rigidity goes, there's pretty much half the genre up there w/ source direct!!

so i wonder that when you say (although his best work is very distinctive I'll grant you we maybe haven't really yet got down to what it is that people were reacting to about photek and source direct, and that people *still* react to when they hear latter-day inperspective and reinforced tracks...

immediate smart-ass answer would be asian woodblocks and jazz hi-hats

Yeah Hidden Agenda! I'm not sure if either Photek or Source Direct ever topped "Dispatch #2".

Just listened to some of Modus Operandi again and I think it does have the joltiness I was implying it lacked upthread. Maybe what is notable about it though is how spare the programming is: very complex and precise, but Parkes wants you to hear every single snare. (x-post - maybe this is what you're looking for, Vahid - the individual drum sounds don't get lost in the blur of drums like they did in earlier jungle, or in mid-nineties Lemon D etc. But I think the breakage stuff is quite a bit about getting lost in the blur of the drums).

Also I think the Leon Switch/Kryptic Mindz album is in a similar ballpark (rather than allied with SD and Lexis against Photek as, again, I implied upthread).

The key maybe is that I forget how similar Lexis and Photek were - much more so than Photek and SD. Lexis also had that desire to shine a spotlight on each single drumsound. But I do like Lexis slightly more. Not sure why. He's hookier maybe? More melodramatic? Obv. he was following in Photek's footseps. This is a Lexis track ("Irrampent") I posted to another jungle thread a short while ago:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/87602446672097/

Something like Source Direct's "Enemy Lines" has a very different strategy to Photek: that very simple opening kick groove, the tick-tick hi-hats, that bassy synth riff on top of the flooding sub-audible dub bass, the throbbing wasp hum, and then (and this is U&K) the sudden rush of hyper-speed, hyper-complex metallic drums that almost sound like they're playing in anothe room (they also feel quite "high" in the mix - not loud, but actually high as in somewhere above your head). I love this track to death but the "groove" is about the interplay of different elements, whereas on Modus Operandi at least Photek is always keen to keep the drums really visible and clear - though I agree they would be better if they were mixed to sound louder vis a vis everything else.

("Enemy Lines" is quite unusual for a SD track though - this is the problem with generalising about how particular producers approach rhythm etc.)

the individual drum sounds don't get lost in the blur of drums like they did in earlier jungle

right!

so i just went out for an hour, went to the bookstore, picked up some groceries & drycleaning etc. and as i'm driving around town, decided to grab "metalheadz 2", stupid choice because photek's not even on it, but whatever, figured i'd try to understand what made source direct so "complicated"

here's the best i can figure

1) they do all sorts of different fills. their "dark metal" is sort of ridiculous in this regard. the first three bars are fairly constant, they do a different tiny fill at the end of every fourth. but then they also are constantly adding and dropping tiny elements all over the place

2) you are absolutely right, they mix the drums differently. all of the other producers use very "wet" drum sounds that definitely overlap each other. j majik is quite complex - at least "my sound" remix is - but his drum sounds blend into one another, as do grooverider's, ed rush's, etc.

interesting to note that the other producer on metalheadz 2 that mixes the drums that way is optical, who is like the poster boy for rigid! but he does weird things with smashing the bars into each other, truncating the drum loops so the whole thing sounds rushed and strange.

but i think aside from drum sounds this point here is totally key:

3) they're doing DRUM & bass rather than drum & bass. meaning that there's a huge sense of space in the source direct productions. unlike, say, ed rush or digital they don't bury the sound under a thick wall of bass pressure. they're very judicious with the bass, almost reserved to a fault. they basically keep things open except for some thudding accents on the end of bars. and the bass is NEVER midrangey, it's always sub-bassy, so it sounds less like a bassline and more like something huge smashing into the wall of the club, just a concussion in the air.

adam f's "metropolis" seems to share the approach. a very source direct-y track.

"hidden agenda" stood out as being the most self-consciously complicated in their approach. they also have some sort of fundamental difference w/ the rest of the pack that's hard to pin down. maybe that their tracks have basically NO forward momentum at all??

Yes! "Metropolis" fits in very well with both Photek and Source Direct.

Totally the connection with Optical is there too, really the problem with Optical is that "To Shape The Future" is as interesting as he ever got.

Re "Dispatch #2", for me no other track better sums up how confounding the rhythms can be in D&B. It's especially important that the first two minutes are so are like the sparsest, most straightforward 2-step track you've heard, and then the beat just breaks down into this absolutely weird groove intent on eating itself - yeah, it doesn't really have forward momentum, it just coils inwards, it's like a machine that keeps malfunctioning more and more dramatically.

"Pressing On" takes this internal coiling to a point that just becomes a bit messy, it's the malfunctions but there's no machine, though I still really like it. (this balance between operation and malfunction is pretty important for this kind of late-90s D&B though - techstep ultimately recoiled back into smooth operation but it is possible to have too little operation and too much malfunction. This would be my criticism of some of the most hyper-complex breakage stuff and Fanu to some extent: it verges on drill & bass style loss of groove.

"1) they do all sorts of different fills. their "dark metal" is sort of ridiculous in this regard. the first three bars are fairly constant, they do a different tiny fill at the end of every fourth. but then they also are constantly adding and dropping tiny elements all over the place"

Vahid I assume that, if you didn't already know it, you've read me harp on about Dom & Roland's "Elektra" enough times to track it down? It really is the absolute pinnacle of the "dark metal" style I think.

mutant revisited = more interesting than optical ever got! techstep must be the only genre that just got worse and worse from the blueprint! or maybe all genres are like that ...

is the adam f album ('colours') any good? i keep seeing it in my local secondhand shop, consider buying it for a few seconds then move on. he was so mindblowingly good with "metroplis" that i was always a bit disappointed with the rest of his output - mainly the jazz funk influenced stuff. i wish he'd stuck with those razor sharp beats / basslines. lets face it though, you're never going to top a track like metropolis.

alex reece is another one who produced a seminal record for metalheadz and then got bogged down in jazz d&b lite. (having said that, i loved the "feel the sunshine" ep when it came out).

although alex reece seemed to disappear all together after about '97. is 'so far' any good?

wait you like "feel the sunshine" but you don't like "jazz d&b lite"?

i actually love me some alex reece too - i ESPECIALLY love dj pulse's remix of "feel the sunshine". but i never really listen to my copy of "so far". put it this way, the tracks are linear to a fault. like even his best stuff, "pulp fiction" or whatever. the groove is established in the first 30 seconds and it goes like that until the end. at best he adds an acid line, a trumpet, a soul sample. but very very linear. and if i'm going to listen to stuff like that it's gotta be loud and rude, like urban takeover or click'n'cycle or mulder.

so what do you like about alex reece?

Ha ha double x-post:

No, but it's prescient: So Far is padded out with bad summery 2-step pop-d&b tracks from about 5 years before that became a big thing.

Colours is about half great, half meh - "Colours" and "Aromatherapy" are both great c. 1994 ambient jungle, there's both "Metropolis" and a great soundalike, and I actually really like the vocoder track "Music In My Mind".

The Al's Records album is better than So Far, I think, but I lost my copy quite a while ago so it's hard to verify. I think that that style was ultimately done better by people like Flytronix or E-Z Rollerz at the tail end of the 90s, although it's never been a sound I'm terribly drawn to. You could just stick with Doc Scott's "Far Away" and be done with it...

techstep must be the only genre that just got worse and worse from the blueprint! or maybe all genres are like that ...

-- moonship journey to baja

certainly d&b never had the creative longevity that house or techno has had (note my use of the past tense).

cue open hornets nest...

Please let's not have this discussion again. There are already several clustfuck threads devoted to the topic.

Fair point - sorry for bringing it up.

so what do you like about alex reece?

-- moonship journey to baja

like tim said, i think it's the summery vibe on tracks like 'feel the sunshine'. actually i think i preferred 'jazz master' off that ep anyway. the guy was seriously unprolific if you look at his discography. not quite sure how 'pulp fiction' fits into all of this. didn't he have to remix it slightly to get it released on island? goldie wouldn't let him use the original on his album or something.

ok here's the three albums i listen to instead of "so far"

in order to dance 6 - very bassy, very lush. in many parts very "cosmic" in the jacob's optical stairway sense. obviously since it's on r&s a very heavy detroit techno vibe over the whole thing.

revolutionary generation - some of this is surprisingly very tough, while still keeping a jazzy vibe. lots of it reminds me of guy called gerald or (especially) nookie

storm from the east - haha insert "quiet storm" joke. the most bukem-esque of the three. actually very much in line w/ the logical progression sound, but somehow transcends that. i think because it doesn't have the ultra-serious vibe of some GLR records, it's actually very relaxed / relaxing listening

thanks for the info. actually i used to have 'in order to dance 6' but have no idea where it's got to now. i liked the 'loop 2' ep a lot and the alex reece remix used to get some rotation (preferred the luke slater remix tho).

will look out for the other two on my record shopping travails. if we're talking about this style, i think my favourite must go to wax doctors 'the spectrum' offa the plat breaks 1 comp. absolutely immense record. few d&b records managed to capture the detroit spirit as much as that one (for me anyway).

Storm From The East 2 ain't bad either, esp. Alex Banks' "Control". Mind you it's mildly disconcerting to have a tune by Hyper-On Experience called "Reed Breeze"...

Finished listening to Modus Operandi and was reminded of why "KJZ" was always my favourite track on the album - pretty amazing programming, I love that fluttering cymbal sound. But god do the slow tracks suck. It was like the law at this point that every D&B album had to have at least two astonishingly awful downtempo moments, wasn't it?

couldn't agree with your more re. 'KJZ'. that track is a masterpiece in drum programming as well being a beautiful piece of music. but i thought the slower tracks worked quite well (for once) on this album. i love the walking bassline on '124'.

'124' modus operandi

you could do a great Rough Guide to DnB producers going downtempo tho

fave thing Alex Reece did = 'Detroit' with Wax Doctor. the single remix of 'Candles' was actually better than the album version despite being even poppier (ha, hopefully you know what I mean here).

you have to wonder tho why if these guys had such a hard-on for UR why they didn't at least start doing actual Techno. i was still shocked the first time i heard 'Mine To Give' tho.

alex reece had a project with wax doctor called fallen angels which is what i'd imagine dnb gone techno is. it is super generic and poppy and rushy and really great like breakbeat hardcore was. i think the "summery vibe" is over-attached to reece because you can also look at his tunes like they are just one continuous rinse (= pressure) (and yes, i am kind of reaching here). this is the fallen angels album. i'd be curious to know what you guys think. the single that preceded the album is worth checking, too. i guess if you prefer techstep/breaks to 2-step it wouldn't be your thing but it is a nice foil to stuff like virus.

i don't think i've ever heard source direct unless they were on the metalheadz comps.

For tricky:

Source Direct - Enemey Lines
http://www.zshare.net/audio/970943193549e9/

spare, pure, surprisingly funky

^^^otm photek description

cheers tim

I'm getting very positve readings

From back when i was flirting with Idiot Deranged Mumblings, loved this shit.
I have got to stop answering my own posts. It's me mamm who keeps butting in.
Is she keeping me behind the times? 10 years too late?

yes, "UFO" probably deserves some mention here.

tim what do you think of "two masks"? probably my fave source direct track.

just to bring it back to photek - t/s: "two masks" vs "ni ten ichi ryu"

fave Source Direct = "The Wedge". i haven't heard "two Masks".

"the wedge" is by hidden agenda.

dope track, though!

:D

sorry to crash the party kids

am a pensioner punker
thanks for your help

I like "Two Masks" but think "Black Domina" is a slightly better version of the same thing (both are miles better than "Capital D" or most of Exorcise the Demons. My favourites are "Enemy Lines" and even more so "Computer State", which takes the carefully arranged compulsive fucked-up-ness to its greatest height I think. "Two Masks" verges on fiddly.

Kind of odd to think that both Photek and Source Direct, before they established the sound(s) for which they're still known, were making floaty melodic mash-ups for Certificate 18 as Studio Pressure and Sounds of Life respectively. An LTJ Bukem mix I have from 1994 actually transitions from Sounds of Life's "Release The Bells" to Studio Pressure's "Relics". These records have a very similar vibe - actually the entire Bukem mix (on Fantazia Takes You Into The Jungle 2) is like an advert for the early Certificate 18 sound, moreso than the smoother Good Looking blueprint of the same period.

Bukem agressively cutting 'Can we change the future' (Sound of life remix) into the preceding track (Funky Technicians' - Airtight) on his Mixmag live mix is up there as one of my favourite d&b moments. I never seem to tire of that transition.

Here's a Kryptic Mindz and Leon Switch track "Ocean Blue" from their album of last year. The rhythms on this are pretty amazing, if a lot like "Black Domina" or "Two Masks":

http://www.zshare.net/audio/97808377286d72/

Bukem agressively cutting 'Can we change the future' (Sound of life remix) into the preceding track (Funky Technicians' - Airtight) on his Mixmag live mix is up there as one of my favourite d&b moments. I never seem to tire of that transition.

-- sam500

http://www.sendspace.com/file/1vsa6g

Like the housey photek stuff.

Solaris never gets the props it deserves. Fuck those spoddy D&B purest wankers.

yes!

erm, "purest wankers". Now there's an image for ya

it gets the props it deserves for an album with 2 great tracks on it.

I can concede that "Junk" meanders a bit but this is an album that manages to cover all bases and never sounding awkward or disjointed.

I really can't understand what people have against it. The menace of his ealier stuff being stripped away perhaps? Why does it always have to be about dark vibes?

Some people hate pretty tepid house music (generally) and Robert Owens (specifically) is what they have against it.

Wow I don't remember hearing that LTJ Bukem mix, but I have definitely heard that transition before. Now I have to find that mix to figure out if it was something I may have recorded off the radio in like '97.

That album is worth it just for Mine To Give

"Goldie's best moments often = Rob Playford's best moments."

Yeah yeah yeah and it's all Nico Sykes too and blah blah blah. Maybe Rupert might have benefited from an engineer.

-- Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Saturday, 9 July 2005 16:52 (3 years ago) Link

"Goldie's best moments often = Rob Playford's best moments. belong to 4 Hero"

t'raenon sooooooooooo nice... my least favorite photek record for a long time but i am loving it these days.

Has this been posted before? All Photek mix courtesy of Bailey on BBC 1xtra. Fine stuff - some of which I'd never even heard before.

http://www.mediafire.com/?yufyqxitmm0

Truper - Volume 2 (Street Beats)
Studio Pressure - Jump Mark 2 (Certificate 18 Records)
System X - Mind Games (3 rd Eye)
Aquarius - Drift To The Centre (Looking Good)
Studio Pressure - Fusion (photek)
Aquarius - Dolphin Tune (Good Looking)
photek - Rings Around Saturn (photek)
photek - Say It (Prototype)
photek - Consciousness (Metalheadz)
Studio Pressure - Water Margin (photek)
photek - One Nation (Prototype)
photek - Seventh Samurai (photek)
photek - Still Life (Remix) (Razors Edge)
photek - Ni-Ten-Ichi-Ryu (Science)
photek - Knite Vision (Science)
photek - Something Else (Bleeps Tune) (photek Recordings)
photek - Tuesday (Dub)
Inta Warriors - Inta (Special Forces Remix) (Prototype)
photek - Aleph 1 (Science)

huh, I am really enjoying Solaris

it only took 13 years for me to get to this point

I know the best little Vietnamese cybercafe...

i haven't felt like listening to Solaris since it came out

I only played it because I remember the overall reaction to it being similar to the backlash reaction to RAM; unsurprisingly I am enjoying it a lot more than RAM so maybe I'll be in the mood to really dig that album in 2026

Why did you check it out (at the time and now) Dan I thought you disliked Photek?

What? I loved Photek up until Solaris came out; I bought "The Hidden Camera", "Ni-Ten-Ichi-Ryu", Modus Operandi and Form and Function when they were released. I think you are confusing me with someone else?

i dug it out, it's better than i remembered. it's weirdly all over the place tho.

the main reason I was not into Solaris was because I was so into the doomy drum n bass stuff he'd been doing before and was not at all in the mood to hear his take on loungy progressive house music

Okay must be confusing you with someone else from back in the old days.

i've still never heard this because i loooooved photek and haaaaated house music at the time.

I haven't talked about Photek all that much here, I admit, but I am pretty sure he was among the names I would regularly drop on a.m.a as someone I loved (I'm sure I talked about Squarepusher more, though)

Yeah one of the old regulars used to complain that i'd put them onto Photek with a description that sounded more exciting than the music actually was and I was like I mostly preferred Source Direct anyway.

haha OTM re: Source Direct

oh wow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyKuzY52hWU&feature=player_detailpage&list=PLUdmMccuxH2HJrCrFvMUa6g2VlyPvOpTI

Brilliant! He's such a lad/geezer/geek.

Never really stopped listening to KJZ and Mine to give since they came out, 17 and 13 years ago. Wowsers!

Really wish there was a 10 minute version of the track Solaris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV1MoazXFNM

I think my favourite Photek aliases are Studio Pressure for the smoother stuff and Truper for the all-out layered chopped Amen/Helicopter assaults.

fitting that the Photek doc clip there starts out like a car commercial

"Knightvision" aside (it's just okay in a moody 1998 2-step dancing thinkpiece kind of way) the "originals" half of Form & Function is pretty much unf***withable, amirite?

Esp the "Rings of Saturn" --> "The Water Margin" --> "UFO" final victory lap stretch.

yes sir

tho i pretty much love all of F&F tbh

Oh yeah the remixes are mostly fantastic too.

I was just thinking in the context of the discussion upthread, if someone wanted to "get" Photek, listening to the back half of Form & Function would be a much better option than listening to Modus Operandi (though I like MO too).

yes, forever. F&F was the only Photek record i owned and i listened to it to death. still sounds amazing.

was just bumping MO like 30 mins ago

watch straight ahead off my flashlight ... there it is again

watch straight ahead off my flashlight ... there it is again

Classic. If for that alone. It spookily moves me ,everytime

THIS TUNE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAZmerb5gS4

Should get around to a Photek POX.

Tentatively scribbled this ten down a while back.

Aquarius - Drift To The Centre
Studio Pressure - The Water Margin
Photek - Complex
The Sentinel - TouléPleu
The Truper - Volume 3 B
Photek - Rings Around Saturn
Photek - The Hidden Camera
Photek - UFO
Aquarius & Tayla - Soul Searching
Photek - Consciousness

God how I love Photek

If I hadn't seen the record with my own eyes I'd have thought this was a joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3AVoBbzMsw

Going back to Form & Function, this is still *the* Photek album for me. I got it on cd from Best Buy in high school, I don't know if I had somehow heard of him or was looking for drum & bass albums and chanced upon it. Still sounds incredible.

Really enjoyed Philip Sherburne's Modus Operandi revisit, and going back to that record:
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/photek-modus-operandi/

Also I'm finally old enough to appreciate Solaris, especially if I just think of it as some house record. The blown-out quality of the kicks and basses is nice, and the dubbiness.

I just rediscovered his 2012 DJ Kicks mix , so nice

ooh, sounds like a good listen for the commute home

Pitchfork piece was great. There’s a lot of electronic music from the mid/late 90s that I loved desperately at the time. These days a lot of it feels… of its time. I don’t want to say they’ve aged poorly but I just can’t separate them from their era (Squarepusher, u-Ziq, Bukem, Roni Size and others). All these years later this particular Photek album still captivates me. I always put it on when I really need to get into a state of intense focus (i.e. writing to deadline).