A GUY CALLED GERALD - Proto Acid

 

A GUY CALLED GERALD
Proto Acid: The Berlin Sessions
Laboratory Instinct (Ger). LI011CD

The boundaries between artist album and DJ mix have been blurred before - but never quite like this. For his first album for the German label laboratory Instinct, the legendary British producer Gerald Simpson (who now lives in Berlin, hence the title) recorded 24 new tracks which were then fused together, in one take, using a couple of laptops and a mixer. In most instances just a couple of minutes of each track makes it into the mix, which, presumably, means plenty of scope for experimentation should he be inclined to tour. Proto Acid: The Berlin Sessions' is aimed fairly and squarely at the dancefloor, and it's completely instrumental, so when and where you listen to it will make a big difference. Occasionally it all gets a little linear and pedestrian the Berlin allusion in the title is perhaps all too literal), but there's still much to recommend: the 303 is conspicuous only by its absence as AGCG instead coaxes all manner of tweaks and warm, pulsing basslines from his myriad machines.

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Dave Stenton