Sweet Exorcist 'Testone' (Warp, 1990)

Early bleep magic from Sheffield's crucible of a machine-driven magic.

This record is made out of almost nothing, it's incredible. A bleepline, some echo, a very simple drum machine, a bassline, a snippet of vocal sample and a bit of synth for the breakdown. That's all there is to it but, my god, it conjures up so much more than the sum of its parts.

It's a groove. It's a feeling. It sums up a whole movement and the euphoria of succumbing to the tryannny of the bleep and echospace in between the notes.

Put together by former Cabaret Voltaire man Richard H. Kirk and Richard Barrett (aka Parrot, later to form the All Seeing I) in 1989, it was one of the first releases on Warp in 1990. Its lineage can be traced right back through Humanoid's 'Stakker Humanoid' to Mr. Fingers to Strings Of Life to New Order to Giorgio Moroder to Kraftwerk. Its impact was to directly inspire ten years of dancefloor mayhem - Tricky Disco, LFO and beyond.

A true work of art.

Download Sweet Exorcist 'Testone' (WAP3, bleep, electronica, acid house mp3 download) (Mediafire)