Mojo - The Music Magazine

Features Disc of the day

System 7
Alpha Wave (Plastikman Acid House Remix)



Steve Hillage's techno group reach endless acid lift-off.

System 7

In the dance music bangaround of the early '90s, revellers needed calming sounds as well as big boshing ones. And so it was, thanks to The Orb's Alex Paterson playing it in his DJ set, that Steve Hillage's 1979 ambient mesmeriser Rainbow Dome Musick found its way back into currency. The attention drew Gong veteran Hillage and partner Miquette Giraudy into the dance scene and the result was their techno reincarnation as System 7. This epic, 19 minute 35 second treatment of an album cut from their Point 3 LP by Ontario techno droog Richie 'Plastikman' Hawtin starts off with what sounds like a sweeping lighthouse beam, but it soon becomes a pounding exercise in tension building. Hi-hats don't appear before three minutes in, and when it seems your fevered brain cells can take no more, the demonic, intestinal splat and squelch of the Roland 303 kicks in at 6.35 mins. Then we're off with a series of near-painful, incremental crescendos before it all collapses at 12 minutes and we're back to the lighthouse beam searchlighting an alien landscape. Left near dead, the whole thing begins again on a series of punishing drum rolls before full 303 cerebral bursting is achieved. It's totally psychedelic, but on a fiercely physical level: a bracing start to a new year of MOJO4music Discs Of The day.

Clive Prior

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 12:04 PM GMT 04/01/2010

Further Listening

Joey Beltram – Energy Flash (R&S, 1990)

Hardfloor – Hardtrance Acperience (Harthouse, 1992)

Robotman – Do Da Doo (Plastikman’s Acid House Remix) (Mute, 1995)


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  • YES!! This is such a great remix and one that sits proud in my record collection. I was just waffling on about how psychedelic the 303 sound was on another forum. Even without a head full of E this kind of stuff sounds amazing. Proper trip music in all senses of the word.
    Now, how about a look at Sabres Of Paradise 'Smoke Belch 2' remixed by David Holmes........

    Posted by Johnny Boy at 11:19 AM GMT 05/02/2010 Report Abuse

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