hardcore contiNOOM

Back in the '90s I listened to all sorts, a real omnivore despite the increasing focus and patriotism for the London pirate nexus 

Here's a tune I really liked outside that zone

Involves stunning deployment of Mentasm stabs, using panning and delays, the net effect of which to make the stabs appear sculpted in stereo-space, to be coming at you from multiple angles like  geometrically faceted javelins. 

Be patient, it does take a while to build, there's a long chuggy trance intro, and then the killer section kicks around 4.10. -and after that then it just pummels and sears all the way to the end. 

Ooh gosh - imagine the rushes this triggered across the Continent!

It's like a cleaner, pristinely-focused version of Human Resource's "Dominator"- sharp like a new pair of glasses.

Not sure what you'd call it, or what is was known as at the time  - Hardtrance? Trancecore?

Quite close to Dance Ecstasy 2001, the trance-leaning offshoot of PCP

First heard "Are Am Eye" when Lenny Dee played it at Rezerection - where it stood out in a field of otherwise extremely samey and indistinguishable material heard through the night - mostly happy hardcore - "A A E" stood out not through being eccentric or deviant but just quintessential and exemplary. 

Picked up a bunch of other tunes including his similarly titled "Eye C Red" and "Eye B M" and a few other Noom bits - but nothing else I heard from Tom or the label quite hit the bull's eye like "Are Am Eye". 

Noom meets Nuum - a remix that has some Acen "Trip to the Moon" at the start, and passim

The Commander's own remix 

Or one of them - he did a bunch over the years (sad to learn Commander Tom died in 2022)

Many others remixed it

Indeed it's been remixed to a ridiculous degree

The original is unimprovable 

The Noise of Art versus The Noise of Art

Now you may recall The Noise of Art - which was Suburban Base graffix wizzrd Dave Nodz having a go at making tunes, assisted by engineer Mike James 

Name homaging The Art of Noise, inaugurators of a lineage of Brit sample wizardry that flowered in jungle (AoN especially relevant to the skratchadelik Sub Base kru insofar as they were the backing band for "Buffalo Gals").  

No doubt the name also acknowledging that he was a visual artist moving into the realm of sound - the graphic face of so many legendary Sub Base covers now infiltrating the vinyl itself, no longer just the gorgeous husks encasing the vinyl.

 

But did you know there was an earlier The Noise of Art? A whole decade earlier -  a real-time homage to the sound-signatures and techniques of  The Art of Noise, very much working within the same    ultra-stabby, 1-second-sampletime aesthetic as Dudley & Cru.  

This The Noise of Art was a side project of Murray Munro, one half of the synthpop outfit Mainframe. 

Released on the Ying Yang Yumm label (teeheehee).  

Based out of Hemel Hempstead, neighbour to my hometown Berkhamsted 

Parody / replication of the Horn Frankie/"Two Tribes" chugger disco-metal sound also audible on the track "Sex:War:Religion"

Is that meant to be a parody of the Morley sleevenotes?

There was a follow-up

RRunning joke about Baxters Soup.

The non-parody output sounds quite Buggles / New Musik - even the word "Radio" in the song title, although that may be an attempted ploy to woo deejays. 

Look a bit Bugglesy too

Probably fan of Thomas Dolby as well

Their one shot on a major label (Polydor) 

This megamix nearly-15 minute 12-inch version romps through all the remixological conjuring tricks of 1985 and exhibits further evidence of a Trevor Horn fixation - that same "Two Tribes" elastic-bass bassline. Shades of Yello and Trevor Hardcastle's "Nineteen" also.  

Back to Dave Noddings, whose daubs in sound were decent but whose real forte was the wild-style sleeves.