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CD
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KLANG 006CD
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"Following further sensational projects [Minimal Man on Trelik, Sunpeople (with Thomas Melchior), Birds (with Mo + Kotai & Jochen Bader) e.g. on his Pal-Sl-Label and many others], Baby Ford's fourth album Headphoneasy Rider was released in 1997. It not only documented the changes, but also drew the attention away from the UK, where not much was happening anymore, to Germany, Berlin in particular. He moved there for a while and collaborated with Klaus Kotai from EMD, amongst others. Another reason for the upsurge of sub genres in the present techno world is the widespread success. People who had the same ideas eventually found each other and deliberately condensed their ideas. The same went for Peter Ford and Kotai. Back in Britain, he now produced a new album after having released a few ground breaking tracks (e.g. for Sunpeople). It was his first for Klang Elektronik. Here too, you get the impression as though you can still hear the hysteric pop acid of 'Chikki Chiki Ahh Ahh' between the lines. Despite all the musical changes and the 'mellower' sounds, Baby Ford still resounds in unmatched beauty. And yet he is someone who picks up achievements, compresses them and lets them arise again in his own sound cosmos. This is why you think you can hear the influence of early L.F.O. in 'On The Floor'. 'Late Check Out' is a quiet, magical track that yet again emphasises how pleasant synthetic warmth can be. 'Bad Friday' shows that Baby Ford has got the ability, as only few others have, perhaps one could mention Richie Hawtin, to orchestrate a club so compactly, to draw the listener into a sealed-off space that is also a mental state. Again the use of vocals ('Word For One Word') plays an important role here. 'Grand Central' is likewise pure minimal techno, if you take for example, the mental dimension as a criterion that an acoustic constant in the course of a track is not perceived as monotony, but as a psychological change. Your level of perception is adjusted in such a way that any small effects can be attributed to almost any large causes. In this respect, the classical piano passages loop through '24 Hr' which actually comes across as an apparently endless acoustic sub-text on everyday life. The concoction of voices on 'The Healing', the last track, is reminiscent of Chicago house, Felix The Housecat, of how it climbs to light from the abyss of dark reverberation -- healing through music, the constant topic especially in house music. That is the ancient secret of techno. You never know how you will experience the track the next day, whether it will shine like the evening before or just be another track. Time after time, the tracks unfold their own acoustic laws. And last but not least, the Robert-Hood-like 'Ambo' will rock the clubs in the form of a 12-inch single release in spring. It's all still the way it's always been. Baby Ford makes no concessions to the world of pop, regardless of how many ideas, sounds and fun of former pop models he uses. Someone once wrote the following about him: 'This is TECHNO as a belief system. Techno has a natural way of deciding whether something has been done with the right attitude or not.'"
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