Music » IDM Music

Release Date: 1994-03-01, Audio CD, Fontana Island

Release Date: 2004-03-23, Audio CD, Warp Records

Full Title - Bhangra Bloody Bhangra - A Tribute To Black Sabbath. The Opium Jukebox team have brought you their trademark dubbed-up, chilled out, chemically enhanced tribute featuring Ozzy Obbourne. 2002.

Evan Bluetech is to Southern California as ambient is to dub. With a background in classical and improvisational piano, he has honed his wares with yearly performances at the infamous Burning Man festival and other outdoor gigs. He serves as Music Director and performer for the living ambient gallery Project Cathedral in San Diego and has contributed his work to the award winning Continuums Project as well as numerous television commercial soundtracks. He is also one of the founding members of the art collective Native:State, a group of quirky circus performers, DJ's fire dancers and music makers.

Bluetech melds the electronic with the organic, utilizing custom-built Reaktor instruments and software-based synthesizers. His traditional classical training brings a warmth and musicality to the precision and detail of his extremely fresh electronic style and sound. Besides ambient dub influences, Bluetech also borrows from the worlds of IDM and experimental electronica. Inspired by artists like The Orb, Sounds From The Ground and Higher Intelligence Agency, Bluetech delivers a vivid distinct sound that is both modernistic and retrospective.

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An ambient-techno classic, UFOrb captures Alex Patterson and his sonic henchman at their early peak. While the Orb had already created a dance-floor and chill-out-room sensation in 1991 with Little Fluffy Clouds, this follow-up disc displays Patterson's talent for fusing ambient music with dub science and a club culture mindset. Incorporating psychedelicized samples over the era's reigning techno beats and deep reggae bass lines, heady compositions such as "Towers of Dub" and "Close Encounters" are excessive in length but consistently entertaining. The album's highlight is an 18-minute version of "Blue Room" (there's a 40-minute version out there, too), which features the sensual bass playing of Jah Wobble and the oscillating guitar of coproducer Steve Hillage. A most serious contribution to the legacy of the modern DJ. --Mitch Myers

A downright minimal 40-minute outing from a pioneering English techno duo who on earlier discs required that long to warm up. And with six discrete "pieces," there are more ideas and musical themes here than is the norm with both the band and the genre. The title track, with its "you've just had a heavy session of electroshock therapy" voiceover, is the trippiest headphone experience in years. --Jeff Bateman