LFO, "Advance" (1996)

Hard to believe that this album is nearly 30 years old.  At the time, it felt wholly out of place.  Although released on Warp, "Advance" couldn't have been further removed from the "Artifical Intelligence" style of bedroom techno that had dominated the label in the previous few years.  It was too sobering and grounded for the rave scene, and not propulsive or hedonistic enough for the trance scene.  At least half of its tracks aren't suited for the clubs at all, and most DJ's would have been hard-pressed to meld even the more "conventional" kick drum heavy tracks like "Shut Down" and "Kombat Drinking".  Not coincidentally, those were the tracks that Gez Varley worked on.  Most of the album is an extended production reel for Mark Bell's future career as the knob twiddler for A-list electronic acts like Bjork and Depeche Mode. And those tracks still sound as if they were beamed in from an unexplored future world.  Nothing sounds like "Advance", even now.  

"Jason Vorhees" simmers with nervous energy due to its crashing percussive beats and mind-melting filters, but is layered over a serene ambient drifting background.  "Them" lays out a low-tempo squelching funk plastered over lost in the forest, horror movie sound effects.  I'm hard pressed to think of any near equivalent to either track.  DItto for "Tied Up", a sort of headbanger's techno-funk that ascends into a kind of electronic shoegaze paradise, full of breathy sounds and high pitched whistling and god knows what else (this was the single, by the way, and was remixed by Spiritualized into a nine-minute drone-fest).  "Shove Piggy Shove" is perhaps the lone throwback to LFO's bleepy roots, with a cavernous, speaker-rattling bass line to match.

But for me, the album centres around the title track and "Loch Ness".  The former is simply the most heart-stopping, dramatic, crystal shards of sound collapsing on one's head, fist-pumping mindfuck in 90's techno, bar none.  At 105 or so BPM, yet it's not danceable in the least in the context of a conventional techno set.  It starts out quietly with the whispered word "advance" and grows into a monumental cascade of droning and caterwauling.  The kick drum rains hammerfist blows into your chest, the bass causes the entire room to shake uncontrollably.  "Loch Ness" has an undeniable build of a different kind, tricking you into a false sense of security with its tranquil opening synth washes, before exploding into a chorus of electronic birdsong, yet another bass timbre to collapse one's chest, and accompanied by a militaristic snare drum workout.  There is no way to characterize any of this, it's a genre truly unto itself.

"Advance" is probably Mark Bell's masterpiece, the best advertisement for what  he could offer as a producer in the following years.  He was a talent that was truly taken from us too soon.  

BBC Music ranks the top 12 classical pieces that bridged the pop culture divide

 It's always nice to see a list that covers a subject that hasn't been overdone.  Other than Percy Grainger's "Country Gardens" -- the only piece on the list that I wasn't familiar with, it must be a Brit-centric thing -- each of these pieces has been featured, immortalized, and run full circle into parody.  These are truly famous pieces that have spanned oceans and crossed borders, and there's really not too much to argue about here.  One could argue for "Tubular Bells" if one wished to stretch the definitions into classical-adjacent forms, but even that's not a huge stretch considering the ELP version of "Fanfare for the Common Man" that is linked in the article.  There's also a good case for the Dr. Who theme if we branch into experimental music from post-WWII composers.  But if we just stick to tonal composers working with conventional instruments and ensembles, this is as good a list of the "most famous" classical works in pop culture over the past few decades. 

I grew up learning about classical music subliminally through Hanna-Barbara cartoons.  I was pleased to see that the connection to animated series hasn’t entirely disappeared—see the links to Bluey and SpongeBob SquarePants, two cartoons even my own kids enjoy.  Wagner and Strauss are indelibly tied to Apocalypse Now and 2001, respectively, to the point that mentioning the movie titles likely evokes those pieces of music more readily than any specific line or actor from the films