808 State
Prebuild
Rephlex

"This album is top! Especially the track with Lounge Jays, which used to get a hammering by me and many others back in '88. A friend of mine told me about it when I was doing a radio show in Holland, so I went out the next day and bought it. I still have that 12" single somewhere. I really must try and dig it out."

[Reviewer: Luke Slater, with words by Ralph Moore]

808 State
Prebuild
Rephlex

Vintage rarities from UK acid house legends

There was a time when the squelches and bass-lines of acid house were the opposite of cool. Today, the sound of Manchester-byway-of-Chicago is anywhere you want to hear it, from the opening of Jadakiss' "Why?" to the ever-present buzz of New York's producers-du-lour DFA. In the late 1980s, Gerald Simpson, Graham Massey and Martin Price stumbled upon the distinctive sound of the Roland 808 while trying to finesse the ground between hip-hop and electro. Almost by accident - and by divine intervention of the TB-303 - 808 State helped forge a new and more human approach to house. A play on the title of their 1988 debut. Newbuild, this collection of live recordings, demos ("Clone-zone") and outtakes from the year before reveals a trio finding its footing. Check the aerobic crunch and gently rising blips of "Ride" or the haunting "Automatic" for true machine soul. The collection sounds as fresh today as it would have 17 years ago, as proven by the startling and occasionally bizarre 14-minute live jam "Thermo Kings."

****

[Reviewer: Hua Hsu]

808 State
Prebuild

By the 1980s, the begrimed, entropic city of Manchester in Northern England was at its lowest economic ebb, but in the year leading up to the 'Second Summer of Love' in 1987-88, its dying cells convulsed into twitching new life thanks to the homeground sound of a bunch of wired House breakers. The insectivorous Techno of 808 State from that turnpoint year, when the fledgling group consisted of 'A Guy Called' Gerald Simpson, Graham Massey and Martin Price, has been dredged up on Prebuild (Rephlex CD). 17 years later, you'd be hard pressed to find an electronica with as much warm blooded, tensile energy and improvisational edge as these fevered rhythmic dexedrines. It's almost all drum machines, chasing each other around the block in a cat's cradle of intersecting beats and ticking cowbells, with the odd Acid squiggle clinging on for the ride. Without the safety net of laptop programming and sequencing, it's a palpably live jammed sound - the density of sound resembling a Rio carnival jam - with a precariousness that suggests the whole thing could come crashing down if a machine were to skip a ratchet beat. Several tracks feature Gerald alone in his squat, stringently operating the Roland 303 Bassline (on the orders of his senior consultants in Detroit and Chicago) that was to define 'faceless' Techno grind well into the 90s, throttling it until it belched a complaint. The street fortitude of electro and the shuffle of HipHop are also in the mix, but with a gritty trudge and hardline austerity that tag it as peculiarly, industrially British. "Thermo Kings" sounds remarkably good and deep considering it was rescued from a cassette of a set at Manchester's Boardwalk club. After ten minutes the machines still don't seem to want to stop. And as Ken Hollings's sleevenotes point out, one Richard D James walked into a record shop in Cornwall one fine morning and had his mind blown by the "dripping and glistening" bassline from "Massagerama". "Right', he claims to have thought, "this changes everything else from now on." (RY)

[Reviewer: Rob Young]

808 State
Prebuild
Rephlex

********

Between them, A Guy Called Gerald and 808 Slate can pretty much lay claim to kick-starting the UK acid house sound, and after reissuing the long lost Rebuild LP from the days when Gerald was still a member, Aphex Twins Rephlex label bring us another dose of long lost history. The ten minute epic Automatic, which opens the CD, and ancient WAU! Mr Modo Records single Massagerama, whose backwards turns and driving devil trance would scare the shit out of any Tiesto fan these days, show the attitude the UK brought to the techno table in its very rawest form.

[Reviewer: Ben Willmott]

808 State
Prebuild
Rephlex CAT 807 CD

***

Newbuild was the defining UK acid house album, its 1988 release coalescing the disparate emerging elements of the E-generation into a seamless, hip-swivelling abstract built on beats and Manc madheads. Some 16 years later. Prebuild brings together a collection of previously unreleased lost tapes, pseudonym-releases, live mixes and radio sessions that outline the fizzing, hissing energy of '87-'88. The instantly recognisable 303 B-lines and the filter sweeps retain the palpable funk (in both senses) of a thousand dank cellars full of sweating, wild-eyed and shirtless punters ready to change whatever - through rubber limbs and rubber lips. For 808 State this meant gathering together as many black boxes as possible, splicing together old BBC tapes and jamming bare wires into sockets with matchsticks to access power - pioneers always live dangerously with results that are as are frantic and fuzzy round the edges as life was back then.

[Reviewer: Joe Shooman]

808 State
Prebuild
Rephlex

***

Mancunians' lost acid house tapes resurface

808 State's 1988 debut Newbuild was the first great British acid house album. It was also the last significant work by the original short-lived line-up of Graham Massey, Martin Price and (A Guy Called) Gerald Simpson, whose enterprising exploitation of Roland's 303 and 808 machines is the stuff of legend. Now Prebuild, a decent collection of recently unearthed studio, live, radio and demo recordings, sheds more light on that fertile period: there's melody and magic aplenty in Simpson's fluid bedroom sketches, and it seems criminal to have been denied the grimy liquid bliss of "Ride" for 16 years. Rave on (and on).

[Reviewer: PIERS MARTIN]

808 State
Prebuild

One of the most thrilling things about embryonic Acid house was the fact it actually still sounds really fresh today. Analogue, delirious & mad as badgers, not to mention influential as fuck it is. 808 State took the Detroit sound & added a further UK psychosis to it, claiming that the flow of really quality acid records from the States wasn't sufficient to satiate their appetites, so they started making their own. So for those who lapped up the seminal 'Newbuild', re-issued by Rephlex a few years ago, then here we now have 'Prebuild', early home recordings, sessions & deleted stuff from the really early days. It totally rocks. If you want to see where Squarepusher & his lil' bro' got some of their acid from, then look no further! CD/Dbl LP on Rephlex

[Reviewer: Unknown]

808 State
Prebuild

Undeniably one of the most influential acts of the late eighties/early nineties, 808 State can be credited with being partly responsible for the explosion of the acid house movement in the UK. Originally formed by Martin Price, Graham Massey and ‘A Guy Called Gerald’ Simpson in the late eighties in Manchester, right on the grounds that had seen Joy Division and New Order flourish some years earlier, 808 State partly defined the UK acid sound and were integrant part of the love story between Britain and dance music.

Although Simpson left early on, the trio recorded one of the most significant acid records of that period in the shape of Newbuild, originally released on Price’s Creed Records. Hailed by Richard D. James as one of his favourite records, it was only logical for the man to make it available once again through his Rephlex imprint ten years later. Following the departure of Simpson, Price and Massey recruited Andrew Barker and Darren Partington and recorded Quadrastate, their second LP. After being snapped up by Trevor Horn’s ZTT, home of The Art Of Noise and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, the band went on to release the hugely successful 90, which featured the exquisite Pacific 202, and, a year later, Ex:El, which featured a collaboration with New Order front man Bernard Summer. This album also saw the beginning of the collaboration between Massey and Björk, the Icelandic songstress contributing vocals on two tracks, with Massey returning the favour by producing part of her second album. By then clearly pushed into producing increasingly commercial records, the band started an uneasy period following the departure of Price after the release of Ex:El, while the remaining three members returned with Gorgeous, the band’s fifth album. After a four-year hiatus, 808 State reappeared with a more complex and experimental record, Don Solaris, before celebrating their ten years in 1998 with a compilation. By then, the band had lost most of its aura and appeal. Yet, rumours started to circulate about a possible re-releasing of Newbuild, which had long been unavailable, on Rephlex, reviving the interest in the band’s original sound. When the album finally appeared, it was the occasion for a handful to re-live their younger years, while the vast majority simply were given a chance to hear this seminal release for the first time.

Five years on, Rephlex does it again by releasing Prebuild, a series of pre-Newbuild recordings made by the original triumvirate circa 1988. Recently found by Graham Massey, these recordings document the early days of the band. Comprising studio recordings, live radio sessions, demos recorded by Gerald Simpson and a monumental fourteen-minute long session, Thermo Kings, recorded at the end of a hip-hop night at the Boardwalk Club. The album also features Massagerama and Sex Mechanic, which the trio released as a twelve inch on Sheffield’s Mr Modo under the name of the Lounge Jays. All extremely rare, some never previously released, these ten tracks provide an exhilarating insight into the band’s early days. Whether it is trough Simpson’s bedroom experimentations (Johhnycab, Clonezone, Cosacosa), his collaboration with Massey (the epic ten-and-a-half-minute opener Automatic, and Ride) or the trio’s first experiments, including the iridescent pulsating live performance on Thermo Kings, this is the sound of the pre-trendy acid movement, when initiated fans were swearing allegiance to DJ Pierre’s Acid Trax and were dancing all night at The Hacienda with MDMA as only fuel.

Looking back, it is impossible to find anything remotely wrong to this record. The beats still kick arses, the sounds are as sharp as they were intended, and the mood is intact. Even the relative poor quality of the Thermo Kings recording, sourced from cassette tape, contributes to the authentic feel of the track and of the album. This is the work of a band who had found their niche; the sound of a band before they got anywhere near reaching so-called maturity; the sound of three lads from ‘up North’ who were making music as if their lives depended on it. Not just a companion to Newbuild, Prebuild is even more essential as it documents not only the formative sessions of a band, but also the birth of a movement which, fifteen years later, still feels as one of the most important music mutations since the rise of rock’n’roll and hip-hop.

4.9/5

[Reviewer: Unknown]

808 State
Prebuild

Anyone getting into electronic music in the 90's sooner or later found themselves handed over the same indisputable truth : 808 State's "Newbuild" was one of the most important electronic music records ever made and without doubt one of the definitive British Techno / Acid albums. Its seminal track "Flow Coma" has been name-checked by every electronic music producer of note in this country and beyond as an absolute masterpiece and influence on what came to follow, and the band's original line-up of Graham Massey, A Guy Called Gerald and Martin Price have gone into electronic music mythology since they stopped sharing a studio well over a decade ago. Rumours that more Newbuild era tracks were in existence have been circulating for about 3 years now, but no one imagined that the tracks would be quite THIS GOOD!. Prebuild is just immense, a hodgepodge of studio outtakes and live recordings that completely pre-defined the acid era and the squelchy shenanigans the likes of Ceephax still obsess over today. There are some rough, badly-recorded tracks here, alongside immaculately trippin' bleepy studio jackers that sound like they were recorded yesterday, and even a 14 minute live outtake from the Boardwalk Club down the road from us here in Manchester. We said it last week with the release of the New Order cover versions 12", and we'll say it again now - hard to believe that these tracks are slowly edging close to being 20 years old. Mighty.

[Reviewer: Unknown]

808 State
Prebuild (Rephlex)

Although John McCready once said "those who continue to look over their shoulders will fall over" on a '93 poster advertising one of the first "back to '88" nights at the Hacienda, Rephlex's decision to re-release 808 State's debut album 'Newbuild' in 1999 gave some people cause to trip up and do a double-take in the process. Tracks like 'Narcossa' weren't the stuff of the dial-an-anthem, ten-a-penny crap compilations which swept the shelves (and bargain buckets) of many a chain store, even "back in the day". Instead, these were the tunes which helped define the blueprint for northern England's take on the black post-industrial rhythms of Chicago and Detroit, fused with the funk, hip-hop and electro grooves from the US east coast. Not for the first time in musical history, the north-west English working class subcultures embraced and ran with black American music, with mainstream America eventually buying it back years later as a more commodified form.

The original 808 State line-up consisted of Graham Massey, Martin Price, and (A Guy Called) Gerald Simpson. But Gerald left the group during the making of the second album 'Quadrastate', and the Spinmasters DJs (Darren Partington and Andy Barker) entered the fray. Whilst the personnel change undoubtedly helped shift the dynamic towards something that gathered sufficient momentum to make the rest of the country and beyond stand up and rave on (e.g. 'Pacific State', 'Cubik', and 'The Only Rhyme That Bites', with MC Tunes, Gerald had also more than made his mark on the UK acid house blueprint with the seminal 'Voodoo Ray', writing a soundtrack to the book 'Trip City', relocating to Detroit for a while, and even appearing at the Big Chill for two amazing sets in 2002 (on BCFM on Sunday night), then in the club tent in 2003 at Eastnor.

In many ways, it could be argued that the original 808 State line-up was the catalyst for some of the UK's most significant contributions to how dance music evolved from the heady daze [sic] of acid house. Over a decade and a half after the original release of 'Newbuild', Rephlex has found and pressed up some of the lost tapes from which this seminal, influential album came from and in a flash of divine inspiration, called the resultant album 'Prebuild'. This CD is an aural snapshot that captures this significance.

From the outset, it's immediately apparent that you're listening to raw, ad hoc jam sessions. In fact, this is exactly what makes 'Prebuild' so special. If you listen carefully, it's possible to hear elements of tracks which came to light in subsequent years. Given how these three innovators pursued their own distinct paths, it'll not be long before your ears start to prick up at a fragment of a bassline, or the way you realise that within an extended melodic jam an annoyingly recognisable hook will be on the fringes of your conscious thought processes.

'Clonezone' begat the influential 'Narcossa' mentioned earlier, but to my ears, it was a continually pleasant surprise to hear so many references to early Gerald tracks: 'Automatic' later became Gerald's solo release 'Automanik', and 'Johnnycab' is the blueprint from which came the title track of the highly sought-after cassette-only soundtrack to Trevor Miller's novel 'Trip City'. The early acid house influences are much more apparent (and to my mind, still as fresh and exciting today to listen to) with tracks such as 'Sex Mechanic' taking cues from the likes of Adonis and Todd Terry - if you're not familiar with these names, I'd strongly advise you check out Marshall Jefferson's 'Move Your Body: The History of Chicago House' compilation from a couple of years ago (probably one of the finest retrospective compilations of its ilk).

Overall, this CD is something which should mean different things to different people, depending on their own trail they've blazed in the ever-morphing world of electronic music. Whilst there's an accepted wisdom that dance music is near-totally self-referential, this album captures the early drafts of how three Mancs, a drum machine, and a few other bits of kit took the first steps into what was then uncharted territory. If you've ever had even a passing interest in A Guy Called Gerald or 808 State, or by anyone who claims to have been influenced by them, you really ought to give this a listen.

'Prebuild' is released on 2 October 2004 on Rephlex.

Written: 24th Sep, 04

[Reviewer: bgpz]