acen

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

i know everyones too preoccupied with other shit to bother with a boring-ass music question, but what about acen. s&d, c-or-d etc...

personally i thought he over-egged the pudding a bit by chucking in every effect/sound/noise that was current, but there were still some good singles, and sampling you only live twice over that cool break still rocks, (and, what, 6 yrs, before robbie?)

look, what i really want to know, though, is, what the hell happened to acen. he just disappeared one day. i heard some weird story about him dying or something, and then like 20000 people saw him at a rave AFTER he was supposed to be dead. obviously this is fucked, but i must have got it from somewhere. E's were well good those days, but they weren't THAT fucked. ok, someone clear this up?

― gareth, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I read somewhere - bassquake? - that he was still making tunes but reading between the lines they weren't very good. I don't think you can make the type of music Acen made and stay unselfconscious for long, really.

Absolute classic. I really need a copy of his album, even if it is all remixes of "Window In The Sky". But then I love "Window In The Sky".

― Tom, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Tom, you and I should have a little chat. I may be able to help you out with "your problem".

Acen is an absolute classic. "Trip II The Moon" was the shit, but "Close Your Eyes" was even better. I've converted more people to dance music in general with that song than any other.

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i think he's actually making drum'n'bass now, straight-down-the-line growling bassline stuff sadly, he had some tunes on a comp mixed by DB for the latter's F111 label i seem to remember

he also made a rather cool trip-hoppy/Coldcut-like tune for Clear Records about four years ago, under the name Spacepimp -- great squelchy keyboard lick

― simonr, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I didn't know Spacepimp was Acen... strange. Late august 98, I taped the CD off the front of a book I'd just bought, for a drive across Europe, then sneaked Spacepimp on the end, so I could mix (with the auto-reverse) into the 2Badmice etc.
It always reminded me of the Speedy J track on AI vol 1, the sound of something trapped inside a machine, tearing it's way out.

― K-reg, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

ok, so i obviously dreamt that acen being dead thing. anyway, i agree that close your eyes is the best of the acen songs, but so many remixes of it, some dull, i'm still unsure which is the best of them.

his records are probably the most expensive of all the breakbeat rave ones these days, possibly because of name recognition. there were a lot of other cool records on production house though too, notably the house crew's euphoria (nino's dream), which is, like, the best dance record ever, obviously...

― gareth, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

So am I the only one who prefers 'Trip to the Moon' then? That John Barry sample still gives me goosepimples. Better to burn out than fade away, those singles are more precious than the entire output of a Sasha, or Oakenfold.

― Stevo, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

one year passes...

"Trip II The Moon" is my favotrite track, and has been almost since i got into this music 7 years ago. Nothing can seem to grab my heart and soul the way that track does, in particular the "you only live twice" sample of course.......fucking headrush everytime, a thousand listens later. u take me higher, acen, truely.

― MrMikey, Friday, 4 October 2002 22:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

five years pass...

Maybe the closest thing old skool hardcore had to an outright mad genius? Sometimes a little too mad and meticulous for the dance floor, perhaps. His tunes are structured like proper pieces of music, designed to be listened to from beginning to end rather than just wacked on as floor fillers.

Check out this gem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMYZMqQumfk

― chap, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 18:40 (sixteen years ago) link

I still bump the hell out of that one CD. His music holds up in a way that other rave tracks from that era don't.

― Tantrum The Cat, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 19:18 (sixteen years ago) link

the windows in the sky & close your eyes 12"s are some of my most treasured possessions. beyond classic

― never acid again, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 20:04 (sixteen years ago) link

just close your eyes
forget your name
forget the world
forget the people

― and what, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 20:06 (sixteen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.