Evapor 8

Altern 8's "Evapor 8" is acid house evolving into hardcore with the exuberance of people who cannot quite believe what they've discovered. The Roland TB-303 bassline — filtered, detuned, running patterns that seem to generate themselves through happy accident — drives the track with the unstable energy of a chemical process. Over it, a kickdrum that hits with physical insistence and hi-hats that skitter at the edge of human tracking speed, creating a rhythm that bypasses cognition and goes directly to the body. Mark Archer and Chris Peat produced the track in the full embrace of early-nineties rave aesthetics: no irony, no distance, maximum commitment to the idea that electronic music could produce states of consciousness unavailable elsewhere. The vocal elements are samples treated beyond recognition, functioning as texture rather than communication. The track's title — one of several Altern 8 releases punning on the number eight — signals the project's cheerful irreverence, its willingness to be silly and devastating simultaneously. This is music made for specific conditions: darkness, volume, density of bodies, altered states. Heard outside those conditions it sounds extreme; heard inside them it sounds exactly right.