In 2013, over a decade after the original was released, I finished the remix of Ghost.
The original was re-released on a Goa compilation at some point and is available on Spotify.
Category: Trance
I recently signed up for Spotify and couldn’t help ‘spotifying’ myself. A search for “Kill By Inches” revealed a few releases, including Down to 3hree released in 1999 with yours truly on guitars. I’m not exactly sure who gets paid for streaming that record – certainly not me or other band members – yet, I’m paying for the service.
A search for “Alek Biotic” returned most of the Gotham Grooves cuts, as well as the track Dirty Yellow which had appeared on compilation CDs after the original, vinyl release on Robert Natus’ Planet Natus label.
But the most interesting discovery was the 2009 re-release of Ghost (covered on Dopevector previously) which is my first ever release. Due to a typo, the artist name was “Alex Biotic” and appears that way on not one, but two 2009 re-releases of this track. The first is From Goa with Love 2, a compilation from the German Wax n Soul imprint. The second is Goa Universe – The Top 50 of Psychedelic Trance.
Weird shit.
Balkan Express is a 2002 effort with a driving groove which earns it its name. The track has a very clean, unprocessed quality and would probably benefit from either further post-production or just plain old loudness(!), so keep that in mind when listening.
High quality wav is once again available. Enjoy.
Download: Balkan Express (mp3)Download: Balkan Express (wav)
Middleman appeared on Bazooka10 label’s first EP, along with the title track: G-Lock. If this label sounds familiar, its because another Biotic track (Ghost, covered here already) appeared on a Bazooka10 compilation as well.
The track itself is a pretty early work (#21 in fact) and was produced in 2001. While the raw production shows both its age and its adventurousness, there is a certain quality about it that I’ve always liked. So much so, that the string sounds and synth arrangements make it a candidate for a remix in the future.
While this wasn’t the first ever Biotic release (Ghost would be it), this was the first non Various Artists release available on vinyl. The photo above shows its label, along with the name misspelling on it. And no, the mislabels wouldn’t stop there. Future Alek Biotic releases would contain mis-named or mixed up tracks, even the artist name. But seriously… who cares?
An old friend Matt contacted me the other day asking if I had a copy of Preston Space’s Time4Machine. (We haven’t heard from Preston in years and I haven’t listened to this, his first official mix in almost as long.) So I dug into the “archives” and was thrilled to find it. I even found the original cover art which I helped put together back in the day.
If you’ve never had the pleasure of hearing this mix, then get ready for an hour of masterfully blended psy-tech trance. I don’t have the track listing, but if you recognize any of the tracks send me the info and I’ll post it here. I do know that it features a track or two by Eternal Basement and believe that the last track is by Infected Mushroom.
Open Source has that B-side feel. Coming through are some of my early Goa/Psy-trance influences mixed with the more usual tribal techno vibe. The spacing of the heavy low-end vs. elements in the higher range works well and leaves enough room for the flyby’s in the middle.
This is another track which features a sample from the movie Event Horizon – not just because I liked that movie and the sound of it, but because it was probably the only movie I ever ripped the audio from for this purpose. (I maintain that I’m NOT a big fan of movie samples in tracks, but yeah, I know. Whatever.)
I have no clue why this track is called Open Source. Do you?
Btw, the photo above is of a Mars landscape and was one of the 35 Mars photos featured in today’s Boston Globe. I’m guessing that these photos are “open source” since they ought to belong to mankind as a whole.
Far Off Course is a weird, crossover track from 2001. It starts out with some broken beats and then morphs into a smooth driving adventure.
The focus throughout is on percussion (at the time I came across some weird tube sounding samples that resemble something from the Blue Man Group soundtrack, and I used them when arranging the drums on this track), aside from which the only melodic passages are creamy stabs and evolving pads which emerge half way into the track and drive it to the end.
While the track is not easy to categorize and fit into a concise set I always liked it and am happy to present it here. Enjoy.
Download: Far Off Course (mp3)Download: Far Off Course (wav)
Produced ages ago, Ghost is the first officially signed Alek Biotic track! It appeared on the German label Bazooka 10‘s first release, oddly titled Erectional Thoughts. A sublabel of Hadshot (one of the first and most respected psy-trance labels), Bazooka 10 offered a different sound and to kick things off the label’s founder, Israeli DJ Yaniv Tal, assembled this compilation. The album was available on both vinyl and CD and featured a variety of international artists including Cortex Thrill.
My discography with Bazooka 10 would include two follow-up EPs, but Ghost still stands out as it was the first ever signed record deal.
Ghost was inspired by the industrial sound of acts like Nine Inch Nails as well as a few popular Underworld tracks from the period. It was arranged using the Akai MPC2000 workstation and recorded to DAT. All of the sounds (drums, synths, samples) were played through the Nord Lead keyboard and the Quasimidi Polymorph module, and no loops were used. Ghost is a personal favorite and I’ve wanted to do a remix of it for a long time, however having sold most of the gear used to produce it and left with just the summed master the effort of recreating it from scratch didn’t seem particularly appealing. Maybe someday…
Lastly, this is the first track featured on trak.fm which has been previously released. So, no WAV download available, but you can get yourself a copy of the full album at online stores like Psyshop.com.
Goliath is a tech-trance jam from 2002. The title comes from the sample used in it, taken from the 1997 Sci-fi flick Event Horizon. If you haven’t seen this movie and you’re into the genre I recommend it, though Sam Neill’s annoying character (and his lame lines) ruined the ending for me.
I am generally not a fan of sampling stuff from movies, but I made an exception here since the track was inspired by the movie and the line (delivered by Laurence Fishburne) fit the bill. The sound of thunder in the background also came from the movie and I always wondered what it was doing there since (unless the thunder was somehow on the space ship) it wouldn’t have been heard in space. Hollywood… whatever.
Another interesting production note is that the bass is not played by a synth but is a heavily filtered sample of an Autechre track Rae from LP5, a sick album which I was heavily into around this time. Rae remains one of my Autechre faves.
Initially, the track was not a Part anything. It was just a track of its own. But a few months later I wrote a different track based largely on it (sans the Fishbourne sample) and that became Part 2, making this one its prequel. Look for the follow-up here in the future.
Download: Goliath [part 1] (mp3)Download: Goliath [part 1] (wav)
We’re going way back to year 2000 for this one. Its one of the very early Alek Biotic productions, in fact, its number 11. But of well over a hundred tracks this one stands out since its the one and only progressive trance track.
Since this genre wasn’t really my style this track was never shopped and subsequently never released. Until now.
This track also features the awesome Nord Lead keyboard, as well as the Quasimidi Polymorph module, now long discontinued (the company folded around the time this track was made). Drum programming and sequencing on the track was done on the legendary Akai MPC-2000 sampler workstation, and the track was recorded to DAT before mastering on the PC.
Here’s Panic Relapse.
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