Album: Dimension Intrusion
Artist: F.U.S.E.
Label: Warp Records
Year: 1993
Rating: 3/5
Summary: A mixed bag of warm ambient techno and loud acid house.
Dimension Intrusion, by F.U.S.E. (an alias of Richie Hawtin, who
later went on to call himself Plastikman), is more like two unrelated
EPs haphazardly stuck together than an album. Roughly two thirds
of its tracks are ambient techno, whereas the rest are harsher
sounding acid house. Apparently Richie Hawtin isn't a big fan of
pigeonholing music into genres, which is a shame because it's this
lack of a cohesive feel that prevents this album from being up there
with its Warp Records contemporaries.
The wonderfully chilled ambient techno tracks fit well alongside
various tracks from Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92 and
B12's Electro-Soma. Listening to them, it's no surprise that Richie
Hawtin went on to create the much better From Within in collaboration
with Pete Namlook on his Fax +49-69/450464 label the following year.
For fans of the genre, this part of the album alone makes the whole
thing worth tracking down.
The more abrasive tracks aren't as much to my liking. They are noisy
and contain a lot of acid line style noodling, but frankly, Hardfloor's
TB Resuscitation is a better example of acid house from the same
year. On an otherwise pleasant album, these tracks only get in the
way of the good stuff.
Fans of ambient techno should keep an eye open for this album, despite
its hit-and-miss nature, but a full album of just ambient techno
tracks would have been much more welcome on my shelf.