Browse by Artist: A GUY CALLED GERALD

Artist:	A GUY CALLED GERALD
Title:	Black Secret Technology
Label:	A GUY CALLED GERALD (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	AGCG 001CD

"A Guy Called Gerald's original underground classic Black Secret Technology is now available again 13 years after its original release. 1995's Black Secret Technology, a bewildering mix of tight breakbeats, techno textures, and flickering, dream-struck voices, has been often imitated but never equalled. Gerald credits much of his work to serendipity, but that doesn't explain the staggering cybernetic wallop packed by 'Alita's Dream' and 'Survival,' or the supreme sensuality of 'The Nile.' The album is woven through with perfect techno-pop bridges, confronting the harsh realities of technology with the life-affirming spirituality of Gerald's club-classic debut, Hot Lemonade. Balanced on the razor edge between mysticism and frenzy, Technology remains a powerful comment on the eternal struggle between man and his future."

Artist:	A GUY CALLED GERALD
Title:	Tronic Jazz: The Berlin Sessions Vol. 1
Label:	LABORATORY INSTINCT (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	AGCG 001EP

This is part 1 in a 4-part series of limited edition 12"s from Tronic Jazz: The Berlin Sessions (LI 017CD). These tracks reveal A Guy Called Gerald's vision for techno in its third decade of existence. After so many years of digital anything-goes, you might have forgotten the kind of sounds that are possible with "old" machines. These tracks exemplify the warmth of house and techno, recapturing the ghosts of the past by shrouding them in new, simple garments.

Artist:	A GUY CALLED GERALD
Title:	Tronic Jazz: The Berlin Sessions Vol. 2
Label:	LABORATORY INSTINCT (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	AGCG 002EP

This is part 2 in a 4-part series of limited edition 12"s from Tronic Jazz: The Berlin Sessions (LI 017CD). A Guy Called Gerald has spent the last couple of years flitting through shadows, turning up on labels like Perlon, Beatstreet and Sender like a peripatetic prophet of the Berlin underground, seeding the scene with cryptic singles that return to the past to suggest alternate futures. The three tracks included here are "Nuvo Alfa," "Flutter" and "Wow Yheah."

Artist:	A GUY CALLED GERALD
Title:	Proto Acid/The Berlin Sessions
Label:	LABORATORY INSTINCT (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	LI 011CD

Britain's A Guy Called Gerald (Gerald Simpson) made his Laboratory Instinct debut with a "drop-tech infusion" mix of Dell & Flügel's "Superstructure" that appeared on the duo's Study For A Skyscraper EP. Now the acid house pioneer and drum'n'bass legend issues his own superb full-length Laboratory Instinct, appropriately-titled Proto Acid The Berlin Sessions. Having literally influenced generations of music-makers with an incredible discography that's grown incrementally deeper since the '80s, the Manchester UK native and now Berlin resident executes the infectious 71-minute jam with a masterful meticulousness. Drenching Detroit-styled techno in sparkling electro, the set, recorded live in one session using two laptops and a DJ mixer at Gerald's Diehold Studio on February 11th, 2006, flows with a relaxed ease. With one exception ("Auto Rebuild," the third track, is a remake of 1990's "Automannik"), the album's 24 raw, club-oriented tracks are all new. Asked to describe the album's sound, Simpson says, "To me it's proto acid; it's how I feel house/techno music would have sounded if the whole rave thing hadn't happened in England ... This stuff has direct lineage to Chicago and Detroit in the mid-to-late '80s." Don't think that, for Simpson, acid's definition is limited to something as obvious as the 303 either. On the disc itself, Simpson doesn't waste a moment but immediately invigorates the set with the pumping tribal groove of "Marching Powder" before moving on to the steely funk-throb of "The Strip." The mix's strutting electro strain makes its first appearance in "Auto Rebuild" and dominates thereafter, though its presence is subtly modulated from one cut to the next, at one moment oozing a house vibe and the next techno. While differences distinguish one track from the next (though Simpson avows that his influences are more machines than particular artists, a seeming Drexciya influence emerges in "Droid" and the dark synth-driven "Feel the Heat" while dub rears its head in "Xray" and "Bass-o-Train"), there's clearly a unified feel to the album. "Skitzoid" casts a mechano spell, "Night Flight" breezily rocks, and the jacking cut "Voltar" broils feverishly for almost eight minutes. Bringing the mix to a chilled close, "Sweet You" floats in a billowing haze of jazzy pianos and locomotive drum brushes before vaporizing in a cloud of cymbal accents.

Artist:	A GUY CALLED GERALD
Title:	Proto Acid: The Berlin Sessions 2
Label:	LABORATORY INSTINCT (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	LI 012EP

Following last year's critically-acclaimed Proto Acid album, the Berlin-based acid house innovator A Guy Called Gerald provides a taster for what to expect from the second installment. "Voltar" starts off with shuffling drums and tribal beats, evolving into haunting sounds and what could be a Native American Indian chanting are gradually introduced. An adventurous take on house music. "Sweet You" features subtle breaks and understated drums, providing the basis for dreamy Motor City chords, a plunging, resonating bassline and old school piano keys. Don't miss this opportunity to sample the latest experiments from Gerald's lab.

Artist:	A GUY CALLED GERALD
Title:	Tronic Jazz: The Berlin Sessions
Label:	LABORATORY INSTINCT (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	LI 017CD

A Guy Called Gerald has spent the last couple of years flitting through shadows, turning up on labels like Perlon, Beatstreet and Sender like a peripatetic prophet of the Berlin underground, seeding the scene with cryptic singles that return to the past to suggest alternate futures. Now he returns to Berlin's Laboratory Instinct label with the follow-up to 2006's Proto Acid: The Berlin Sessions (LI 011CD/LP). Tronic Jazz: The Berlin Sessions builds upon the foundation established by its predecessor to create an even more powerful statement of intent, one that communicates more persuasively than ever Gerald's vision for techno. Where Proto Acid offered a seamless mix of 24 cuts, recorded in one epic session, Tronic Jazz collects 13 stand-alone tracks. That's welcome news to DJs. But there's something else: freed from the flow of the mix, the tracks go deeper into themselves, even while contributing to the overall shape of the album as a single, coherent form. They're more varied in tone and mood, and even tempo. While Proto Acid was, by definition, a track-y affair, a kind of puzzle comprised of interlocking pieces, Tronic Jazz stretches out to explore its ideas in greater detail and greater depth. Nothing overstays its welcome: Gerald is a master of concision, and he manages to express everything he needs in five-minute chunks -- inside which time stops still, arrested by the interplay of deftly-programmed machine rhythms, carefully arranged chord progressions, and a masterfully intuitive sense of sound design. Like Proto Acid, Tronic Jazz is an extension of a life spent listening closely to machines, knowing exactly what knob to tweak at exactly the right instant. It represents a feedback loop through the artist and his circuitry -- a spontaneous journey though the miles of silicon in his vintage boxes. You could call Tronic Jazz's sound classic: its Spartan drum machines, analog synthesizers and carefully-sculpted funk are all modeled after a blueprint laid down decades ago in Chicago and Detroit. Cutting a glissando lead through a field of drum shrapnel, like some kind of pixie earthmover, or rubbing two bass lines up against each other til they throw off sparks. This stuff is wide-eyed and full of life. When it funks, it funks hard, and when it smoothes out, it can be as intimate as a hand-written note left on a lover's pillow.

Artist:	A GUY CALLED GERALD
Title:	In Ya Head
Label:	PERLON (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	PERL 071EP

"When sonic pioneers collide in an ideal setup within club culture dynamics, they do not just produce dents on the floor, but in fact amalgamate in a pliant way to stretch the space-time continuum by means of enrichment through sound. And knowledge. Here we have such a mighty hook-up: Gerald Simpson is known to be an innovator of electronic dance music. Starting with Manchester-based 808 State in 1988, sparking the fire of Voodoo Ray Acid Soul, measuring the Black Secret Technology jungle, finding the Essence of song-based dance via New York City, he continues pushing evolutionary music processes since taking up residence in Berlin. Now he joins forces with the Perlon visionary community of unfathomable deepness and unrivaled sound design always leaving room for novelty, scientific curiosity and blasting mind frames. On this volume, every element of Gerald's spirited signature can be strongly detected again: his rhythm awareness, the proto acid clonks and bleeps with soul implant, the drum&bass infection, the arcane technology, the essence, the magic, the coolness, the timelessness -- again put into a future focus. The stunning result appears as a revelation of a shiny, blue-black character. 'In Ya Head' is featuring soulmate Mia, former Cologne producer and founder of Sub Static, who dived into the Berlin pool in 2004, the same year as Gerald did. The forward motion of this stealth orbital glider with its elegant lunar sister module is definitely space-, time- and style-expanding."

Artist:	A GUY CALLED GERALD
Title:	To All Things What They Need
Label:	STUD!O K7 (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	K7 173CD

"Since the late eighties A Guy Called Gerald has been a force in the world of electronic music. When the history of postmodern dance music is written he is ubiquitous: his visions, his stylistic versatility, and musical open mindedness had a huge influence on the development of global dance culture. Very early on he experimented with techno and acid house and helped pioneer the style that was later called drum n'bass. And now the man from Manchester presents his newest album, To All Things What They Need. Again, A Guy Called Gerald has produced a piece of sonic innovation. For To All Things What They Need, A Guy Called Gerald freed himself from all musical barriers and genre fixations. The groove fundament on which his melodies rest freely varies from track to track, ignoring the common rhythmic formats. Masterly, A Guy Called Gerald fuses oriental harmony fragments with electronic sounds, combining the spoken word poetry of Ursula Rucker with a jazz beat or diving into beat-free musical depths where an intense, soulful sensation reverberates. To All Things What They Need is an album that is shaped by a gentle and deep atmosphere that exudes an irresistible sensuality."

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