Body Conscious

ARCN03 was released around October 2000. Titled “Body Conscious”, it is one of the releases from my back catalogue that I’m most fond of. It follows on neatly from ARCN02, “Storyteller”, and may be the best example of the dark, disorientating techno that the ARC(ANE) label was created to put out.

The first track was recorded in September 1997. “Shiver” is largely sample based. Short vocal snippets and a sampled stab filter up and down, perhaps under my control or that of a random LFO. Most of the sounds, including the sampled and reversed hi-hat, are filtered through the Lexicon Vortex, a wacky rack mount effects processor which I think is great, and which played a crucial part in the formation of my “sound”, if such a thing ever existed. Once I found a setting I was happy with (a stereo delay with a bit of modulation) that patch was saved, and I used the same effect to one degree or another on almost every track I subsequently recorded.

“Partly Due To”, recorded in January 1999, is a murky, uneasy sounding track, with stuttering and echoing vocal sounds. I always liked the idea of dancers hearing voices in the darkness of a club, and never quite figuring out where they were coming from or what they were saying. This track is a particularly unsettling example of that idea, but having made that point I don’t remember ever hearing this track played out by anyone, including myself.

“Through You We” is probably the most easily “playable” track on the record from a DJ perspective. The kick and shaker sounds provide a steady rhythm over which two or three spooky synth patterns cycle up and down in tone and timbre. Simple but effective, this was nice and easy to play out yet dark and disorientating enough to get some interesting reactions (seeing people fall over was usually the aim). I seem to have lost a master CD containing the original recording of this and other tracks, but it must have been recorded in either 1999 or 2000.

The last track is titled “Start The End”, recorded in April 1999. This kicks off with a deep pulse and some sticky sounding high frequency snaps. The main feature of this track is a dramatic sounding looped sample which fades up slowly and bends in pitch here and there to create an uneasy feeling. I’ve no memory of where the sample came from. Although rhythm is provided by the sticky sounds and hi-hats, the kick drum doesn’t appear until the final quarter of the track, shortly before the whole thing fades out.

Files are in lossless FLAC format, compressed from WAV files taken from the original DAT recordings.

download lossless FLAC version of Body Conscious

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