Thirty-four labels across thirty-eight tracks: the number is the portrait. This electro edition of Crate Diggers has no single catalogue imposing its line — it is a federation of small structures where only four names manage to repeat (Battle Trax, Cultivated Electronics, Rebel Intelligence and Robotmachine), and that dispersion says more about the genre than any manifesto.
Three labels, three schools
Among the repeat offenders, Cultivated Electronics is the most eloquent case. Sync 24's London imprint — that is, Phil Bolland's — was launched in 2007 as a response to a UK scene at its lowest ebb and ended up central to its revival. Here it places Junq's 'From Below', seven-plus minutes of patient Ab major electro, and ADJ's 'Another Level'; ADJ also shows up alongside Pathic on Pyramid Transmissions.
Central Processing Unit embodies the other English school: founded in Sheffield in 2012 by Chris Smith, it numbers its catalogue in eight-digit binary — 256 possible releases, not one more — and bridges the city's original bleep era with today's electro. Its contribution is the shortest cut of the lot: S>>D's 'Devil's Tower', 3:05 of sharpened D major interlude.
The Detroit axis arrives with a curious symmetry: Puzzlebox, founded in the mid-nineties by Keith Tucker and Anthony Shakir, signs Aux 88's 'Electro Slaves' — techno bass pioneers — while Tucker himself appears solo with 'U-Will Dance' via D1 Recordings. Founder and group, each through their own door, on the same list.
The rest of the map completes the thesis. Even Warp — whose original Sheffield era is the very precedent CPU's own story invokes — sneaks in with Two Lone Swordsmen's 'Sticky'; Robotmachine releases both Dynamik Bass System cuts, including Hardfloor's remix of the track that shares the label's name; and E.R.P. is everywhere: remixing Indio and Hardfloor, signing 'ZRX' on Frustrated Funk, even lending its name to someone else's track, Noah Gibson's 'E.R.P. Remix'. If anything defines this selection's editorial line, it is that no single line dominates: electro gets published as a network, node by node.
Sources: RA · Wikipedia · RA · MUTEK
