A couple of nights ago I was watching a fantastic documentary on the Berlin underground techno scene from the late 80s through to 1992/3 called We Call It Techno. It brought back a lot of memories of the Sydney scene around the same time – dirty, grimy warehouses, big sound systems, temporary autonomous zones, and a complete lack of health and safety regulation. The only reason we survived was that we looked out for each other, not because there was some signature on a bit of regulatory paper somewhere.
One of the absolute classic tracks from that era, and possibly the best Richie Hawtin record ever, is F.U.S.E’s Substance Abuse. It featured heavily on the doco’s soundtrack. Released initially on Hawtin’s Plus8 in 1991 and appearing on countless compilations thereafter, Substance Abuse is the definitive second wave acid track. Sporting a bassline the equal of Joey Beltram’s Energy Flash, it is still as devastating as it was nearly 20 years ago – and those squealing/duelling 303s . . . well.
Bonus trivia. I remember listening to this on one of the first proper techno compilations I bought back at Central Station Records in 1992 – Force Inc’s Post Acid Crash. Full of early German techno – Alec Empire, Jorg Burger, Speedy J, Thomas Heckmann – as well, it was a hard hitting introduction to sounds of the then underground. Unsurprisingly there were very few events or DJs in Sydney that played anything like this sort of stuff back then, and it took me a fair while to track down the rare parties by Biz E, Tony Colour and James Bond to hear these on big systems.
Bonus trivia #2. The person who sold me the compilation at Central Station? None other than @b3rn!