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How to save on your Gas bills

During the 90s Nottingham boasted a prolific hotbed of electronic dance music producers, many of who were lucky to have their work released on the local Time then Emit labels. By 1995 the latter had reached cult status which has grown over the years, meaning that albums such as Mat Jarvis’ gas0095, acclaimed at the time as an ambient electronic classic, can now push towards $500 on eBay. Experimental label Microscopics are answering that demand by reissuing the album remastered in the original artwork.

Before it became rare, the album was notable not only for the gorgeous electronic soundscapes wafting from its grooves, but for boasting the shortest track ever made, Miniscule, running for less than a second, while Timestretch is a four-minute track shrunk to two seconds. Elsewhere, Jarvis stretches out on inter-planetary excursions which weave spacey melodies into lush carpets of percolating synths and glistening melodies, conjuring anything from beatless Krautrock to Japanese composer Kitaro on the sweepingly emotional Microscopic. Earthshake, created with Brian Horsfield, ventures into beautiful deep techno orbit with a four-four kick, cemented as a timeless classic and later revisited beatlessly on Earthloop. Tim Wright collaborates on the pastoral Discovery, along with masturbating guinea-pigs. Seminal, seductive and now sensibly-priced.

Microscopics | tbc

Reviewed by Kris Needs
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