Wait, there's more.
34. Max Ernst - Click. Soul Center was Brinkmann having good, clean fun. Max Ernst is Brinkmann having nasty, malicious fun. The thumps and hiccups of the sliced up vinyl give rise to timbres that we don't have names for yet. B, $7.95, M.
35. Hardfloor - TB Resuscitation. Hardfloor were instrumental in re-popularising the famous Roland TB303 bass machine that infected 158 billion house and techno records in the late 1980's. Whether that was a positive or a detrimental contribution is a matter of personal taste. I was never big into acid, which is why I carefully kept stuff like this at arm's length, as well as the German hardtrance which it helped to spawn. As with trance, I enjoy Hardfloor very much in small doses. Parts of this album shine their early 90's mega-rave colours a bit too brightly, but if you can still get a rise from "Acperience" and "Lost in the Silver Box" ten years on, then Hardfloor must have done something right. A, $1.43, M.
36. Appliance - Manual. Mute Records doesn't release crap. With this in mind, I took a chance last year on a Mute CD by an artist I'd never heard of -- the bombastic 2nd Gen -- and it paid off. As for Appliance, well, it's markedly ironic how I wrote just yesterday about the dancepunks and challenged them to go as dark as Joy Division, only to have the challenge answered hours later by a CD already in my collection. This album joins the death disco jaunt of Joy Division with the repetitive playfulness of mid-90's Stereolab. It's already four years old -- hey dancepunks, top THIS. C, $3.95, E.
37. Ekkehard Ehlers -- Politik Braucht Keinen Feind. The title ("Politics Requires no Enemy/Hate" (don't blindly trust my knowledge of German, check it yourself as well)) belies the cover art, which is a series of black and white photos of a college house party. Maybe it's the grayscale influencing me here, but nobody looks like they're having fun at this party. It's all shots of people making nasty gestures to the camera and pseudo-punk shots of haggard people in front of messily spray painted walls. The music isn't something you'd want to play at your next bash either. The electroacoustic first half is eerie and unsettling in a "I don't understand what I am listening to, and I'm not sure if I will understand by listening closer" kind of way. But the endlessly droning string ensembles in the second half are the album's biggest highlights. Somewhere right now, Tony Conrad is having multiple orgasms listening to this. D, $13.98, M.
38. Paul D. Miller - Viral Sonata. Besides the hand-drumming, there are no beats on this album. Does DJ Spooky release his more experimental material under his own name? This is one ongoing, shape-shifting ethno-ambient vibe. It's really similar to the stuff on Em:t label, a label that I miss dearly. Maybe the writings in the CD booklet will explain more, although I never have been able to decipher Miller's writings ... D, $1.52, M.
39. Armando - One World One Future. This was a long overdue purchase for me. Most of the house music I listened to in my teens sounded exactly like the "100% of Dissin' U" blueprint drawn up by Armando. He's also been credited with inventing acid house (although he's not the only one). And he was only 26 when he died of leukemia in 1996. The music he left behind is 100% classic. And much of this material could rock just about any club even today, thanks to the tough beats and jazz flourishes that still characterize a lot of modern day house. A, $4.95, M.
