Legendary label, legendary era: the first instalment of DJax-Up-Beats 1990–2005 gathers 20 tracks from those fat years named in the title. Naturally, it is concerned exclusively with acid in its various forms – usually hard, sometimes soft, always electrifying – all drawn from the vast catalogue of Miss Djax’s epoch-defining acid forge.
There is, for instance, Acid Junkies and The Doctors’ »Telephone Terror«, a wild machine jam that drifts increasingly off course because a melody alone is not enough as a supporting framework: beneath the sawing 303 manipulations, a trance melody bubbles through the octaves as well. The British act China White, by contrast, in 1993 pursued more of the Joey Beltram school, opting for a controlled, orderly logic in which the melody follows the beat. The roots of the subgenre, too, receive their due: on »Raw Acid«, Mike Dearborn explains in a reverberant voice where the genre comes from – Chicago. Then comes »Outer Limits (Trance Mixx)«, a clandestine acid wash of epileptic proportions. Beneath a constant spray of hi-hats and unbroken drum rolls, an endless acid line winds its way towards its goal. What is striking is the way Dearborn alters the chords at crucial points. Small effort, high yield.
With compilations of this kind, people often speak of important historical documents. Acid, however, is perhaps the most immediate genre in electronic dance music, and therefore not really susceptible to adequate documentation. One cannot help wishing one had been there. At least for as long as one’s health could take it.
