Regis - We Said No / Allies mp3 album

it's all about the A side for me. Red hot, boiling mixture of anger and nonconformity. this and "divine ritual" remain my faverite Regis productions from that era.(we said "no" too)

Typically DOWNWARDS, it picks a high, dense rhythm, a kicking BPM around 150+ and festoons it in raw, clattering, pulsating, metamorphic electronic noise. Trying to resist it's impetus is like a man made of paper trying to walk up white water rapids. Insistant & persistant, at it's best it's compulsive dance floor diet; where it sometimes falls slightly short, it's good fast chameleonic motor-generator pulsing noise. The second side contains two tracks, both following the lead of the first side. Track one bases it's clattering, over-reaching drum rhythm over what could almost be a loop of some sleazy 70's Soul record, all warm tremolo & muggy atmosphere. The second track on this side is the sound you might get if you were to lock MUSLIMGAUZE & the drummers of KODO up in a large kitchen full of pots & pans, then kick the recordings tempo up by say, 200%. Harsh, almost metallic barriage set to a fast heartbeat kick drum sound. Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.

We Said No (Version) is an alternate take on the A1 track from Regis album "Gymnastics" [DNLP2]. It's basically the same thing, with the percussion getting pushed a tad more into the foreground. Those memorable acid pinches are still there, yet they stay on the same level during the whole time, where as in the original track, parallel with the music's progression, they gained space both in intensity and volume. Anyways, it's a hard, repetitve minimal track, alla Regis circa 1996. If you've dug his debut album or the "Montreal" vinyl, then this is a safe purchase. Allies is one of those impossible to miss hard techno pounders, which, depite its initial and apparent impediments, reveals many layers of joy and true to form madness on the dance floor. Think of (to use a globally known example) Jeff Mills' Step To Enchantment, and how it skips all introduction and formalities, throwing you right in the middle of it. No excuses, no punches, Allies is a brass, chromium, clatter four on the floor thumping piece of techno music, which takes no prisoners, uses no breaks, pauses or anything similar, but just kicks off as if you dropped the needle in the middle of a busy part of any given techno track on amphetamines, and ends in the same way. As I stated before, hard to mix, but expect the crowd to lose it for approximately three minutes if you can pull it off. One other curiosity is: the side Allies is on has just about the largest run-in groove I have ever come across on a 12", and not only that, but it is quite probably the loudest mastered piece of music on a Downwards release, and I have heard avalanches of those. We said no plays @ 33rpm, while the flip side goes @ 45. Apart from the "Birmingham Electronics" etching in the run out groove, the outer corner of the center label has the follwing inscription: "Everyone against Downwards/Downwards against everyone."