Ireland at the end of the 1980s felt like being chained up in the leaky basement of Bob’s country bunker.
Dance music meant either showband geriatrics or parish hall discos where they always played the national anthem at the end of the night. Though if you were really lucky you might get to hear the theme from S-Express.
Altern 8’s origins are clear now in hindsight. I can trace their lineage from Nexus 21 via Detroit techno and Chicago acid house, bolstered by a long pedigree of influences from electro back through soul, funk, disco and dub.
But we had none of that stuff growing up.
No Kiss FM, no Asterix and Space. Our pirate radio scene was domin-8-ed by Declan Nerney, Daniel O’Donnell and – only for the hardcore! – here’s the new hit single from Chris De Burgh.
My first introduction to acid house was at a travelling fairground in the local shopping centre car park. Initially, I hated it. The abrasive and discordant sounds unsettled me. And yet I spent all day long and all my pocket money riding the waltzers just so I could hear some more.
I finally worked up the courage to ask the brusque, chainsmoking carnie in the cash booth what the music was and with a wheezy Mancunian scowl he replied, “acih ‘ouse!”
I left the fairground penniless, dizzy and puked my guts up on the long stagger home – a whole day on the waltzers was good preparation for adulthood, in retrospect.
My taste in techno was further nurtured by Top of the Pops, watching acts like Adamski, 808 State and the KLF. Even at that young age I knew I was witnessing the start of a musical revolution.
Just one crucial ingredient was missing…
Appreci-8
For my parent’s generation it was Beatles or the Stones, for us it was Prodigy or Altern 8.
My love of The Prodigy took longer to incub-8, I’ll admit, but my ador-8-ion of Altern 8 was immedi-8.
It became an obsession. Whatever the hell it was they were doing, and however the hell they done it, I wanted to know how to do it too.
Full On Mask Hysteria’s inlay card was no help whatsoever. It was written in some esoteric cypher full of words, places and people I’d never heard of before. There was also something about Christmas puddings which only added to the confusion.
The only thing I knew for sure was that if I wanted to “know the score” and sound like Altern 8 I’d need to buy some Vicks, lots and lots of Vicks. (And some samplers possibly.)
With my newfound mental and nasal clarity I proceeded to listen to Full On Mask Hysteria every single day for months and months on end.
In class I’d clip the Walkman inside my jumper, with an earphone up each sleeve, resting my elbows on the desk and cupping my hands over my ears. Every so often I’d have to pretend to write something down and muffled breakbeats would spill down my wrist.
But all I ever done was scrawl Altern 8 logos in my copybook until the teachers turned back to the blackboard. When I wasn’t doing that, I was scrawling Altern 8 logos everywhere else.
I’d like to think that that somewhere within the tyrannical walls of shitty old secondary school some of my wonky Altern 8 logos remain. Hard enough to scribble them on a slippery desk in blue biro, tougher still to etch them in wood with a compass.
That was the extent of my educ-8-tion – petty vandalism and abnormally clear sinuses.
But that’s precisely what made me the towering success I am today.
This Is The Moment They’ve All Been Waiting For…
On July 13th, 1992, Altern 8’s Full On Mask Hysteria was released on Network records.
From that point on my life was changed forever.
The entire trajectory of my musical leanings over the past 31 years was shaped by that one album.
I declared myself a raver and have worshiped at that altar ever since, an eternal slave to frantic breakbeats, bassbin-blasting sub bass and freaky 303s.
E-valu-8-ion
Full On Mask Hysteria kicks off with a track called Move My Body, a nice warmer-upper with a steady break and some gnarly rave hoovers.
Then comes Infiltrate 202 – “watch the bassbins!” – which features 808 State Pacific pads and vocal samples from Candi Stanton. There’s also some serious shuddering sub bass on this one – though they did warn you in advance.
Evapor-8 was one of the group’s earliest singles and I think was possibly the second Altern 8 track I ever heard. It features a killer riff over rolling breaks plus some delicious Vamp chords for good measure.
The singalong lyrics didn’t really make much sense until one of the lads at school – the pinnacle of schoolyard satire – changed them to Masterb-8.
He l8r insisted that the song was all about being sexually frustr-8-ed and having a wank. Ergot, his logic went, Altern 8 fans were all wankers.
I’m fairly sure I got in a fight that day, but I digress…
We get around midway through the track and then… Boom! They drop some Strings of Life.
Full disclosure, I didn’t hear that track, or even know who Derrick May even was, until a few years l8r.
Altern 8 were essentially my g-8-way drug to Detroit (once I’d finally weaned myself off the Vicks) and techno music in general.
Underground Resistance, Jeff Mills, Juan Atkins, Kenny Larkin, Carl Craig, K Hand, Drexciya, Aux 88, Stingray 313… I’d never have discovered any of them if it wasn’t for Altern 8 showing me the way.
Track four, 8’s Revenge, blends skilful break splices with Sheffield-style bass and some proper ‘ardcore riffs, while Frequency, another one of their biggest choons, is a uniquely British take on T99’s Anasthasia.
Real Time Status gives you the chance to take a breather from the day glo decadence for a moment to enjoy some straight up funky riffs and breaks.
First of May (which also happens to be my birthday, incidentally) is a surprise I discovered l8r in life since it wasn’t on my original tape.
It begins with a somewhat melancholic piano progression before some sublime and slippery square bass comes in followed l8r by some driving acid.
But that’s as close to a chill-out session as you’re gonna get on this album before Hypnotic St-8 kicks in, a track my dad once described this track as “Japanese ear torture.”
The story was, on an extended road journey, we had agreed that he could get to play a tape first and then I could play a tape, and so on in that order. He had a Credence Clearwater Revival tape, I had Altern 8.
At first he was curious, “is this computers? Do they play instruments? What is this?”
Curiosity soon turned to disdain, “Why’s he just saying the same thing over and over again?”
“It’s a sample dad.”
“What’s a sample?”
That took several attempts to explain until finally, “so they just copy stuff off other people?”
Hypnotic St-8 was finally the track which prompted him to termin-8 our agreement as he grew increasingly agit-8-ed during slow moving traffic and the high-pitch vocals pushed him right over the edge.
To be fair he held out longer than I’d expected.
And while it’s fair to say that, although my appreciation for Credence tapes has increased over the years (the Big Lebowski helped) I imagine my dad’s tolerance for shrieking diva vocals and hardcore rave riffs has only diminished with time.
But from my perspective, cheesy though it is, Hypnotic St8 remains a highlight of the album and a track that never fails to get me pumped.
Activ-8 (Come with me) was the first Altern 8 tune I’d heard and the first of their singles I’d purchased (the signed copy of which I now display proudly on my shelf.)
It’s pure luminous hyper-coloured rave mayhem rammed full of cheesy samples, sizzling synths, brash stabs and frantic percussion. The only thing more bonkers than the sound of this track was the accompanying music video.
Brutal-8-e (release the pressure) makes heavy use of the riff from Nitro Deluxe’s Let’s Get Brutal.
Not that I knew that at the time, it’s just another one of those tracks I would go on to hear l8r in life and go, “cool that’s from Altern 8!”
But honestly, the second riff’s the one that really gets me, sucker though I am for some raw T99 stabs.
The intro to A D-8 With Plezure used to creep me out growing up. There was thunder and lightning and spooky synths while these eerie voices kept calling at me from the distance. I felt like I was lost in a dark alley of some hazy cyberpunk dystopia – until the bassline came along to save me.
Armageddon is, hands down, my favourite track on this album and remains one of my favourite acid tracks of all time.
It starts off with a sample of Public Enemy before adding in some Urban Shakedown drums, “In Yer Face” stabs and frenzied face-melting acid madness.
Then those bells come in and the chipmunk vocals get layered on top causing sheer sonic dissonance. To my teenage ears it sounded like the end of the world was soon to come, but not soon enough.
Because as long as there’s breakbeats and acid when the four horsemen start to ride any time’s good with me.
Armageddon’s had a fair few remixes (KiNK’s got a nice slinky house one I’m quite partial to), but for me nothing will ever compare with the original.
Give It To Me Baby has some proper gritty bass, and when I say gritty, I mean grit your teeth so you don’t grind them into dust bass.
From my original perspective it was the last track on the album, since I had it originally on tape. But I eventually learned that the other versions had one last track, Re-Indulge, an upbeat pianos and breakbeat tune which also appeared on the B-side of Activ-8.
Top one, Nice one
One of the happiest moments in my life was when I met Mark Archer in person, alongside Josh Posthuman, at a retro night in Spain a few years back.
Throughout the performance they were being harangued by some coked up jabbering prime-8 who didn’t like the set for whatever reason. (Fuckin’ ingr-8!)
I wanted to smack him one and shout, “callate coño!” (I mean a bitta fuckin’ respect like!)
But I didn’t do that since I was slightly discombobul-8-ed at the time.
So instead I stood there all giddy, gormless (and sporadically gurning) until cocaine baboon finally fucked off affording me the chance to have a brief chat with the lads as they signed my copy of Activ-8.
And for that I’m eternally gr8ful.
Not long after I found out about Mark’s book, which certainly helped to answer a lot of the questions I’d been wondering about since my early teens. (Questions like, “where do Christmas puddings come from?”)
By then I was a veteran raver, having gradu-8-ed from Belleville University with a masters in Cybotronic engineering, which meant, amongst other things, I finally knew who Derrick May was.
In a way my meeting with Mark Archer was probably like how he felt first meeting the techno dons of Detroit during his Nexus 21 days.
They’re Going Mad!
There is a tendency for us creative types to obsess about such things; how did you get that sound, what inspired you to make X, what were you thinking about when you created Y? (And whatever happened to that Amiga game, or was that just a pisstake too?)
But in a way that no longer matters, because once the signal has been transmitted, its up to us, the audience, to receive and interpret it our own way.
And so it was with those mysterious signals beamed across the Atlantic from Techno City, rerouted through Staffordshire in the north of England where it was amplified with acid and breaks and distilled down into magnetic particles before finally being broadcast via copper wires under cover of my navy school jumper direct to my ill-prepared pubescent brain, igniting mighty sparks of inspiration.
All the great music I’ve listened to over the years, those unforgettable (yet blurry) parties, the sweaty clubs where I’ve danced till dawn in cities across the globe, the sunrises I’ve stumbled out into, the dingy blathering after parties, the 3am zenlike dancefloor religious experiences, the growing tonnage of vinyl I’ve been hauling from one country to another my whole life, hell, even this blog – it all started with Altern 8.
Watch The Bassbins
Life before Altern 8 was dreary and monochromatic. Then Full On Mask Hysteria dropped out of the sky and opened the door to a vibrant new techno-colour wonderland.
More than just an offshoot of Nexus 21, Altern 8 were the nexus alpha and omega, bridging the underground sounds of Detroit with the lairy brash breakbeats of British rave.
They served as the nexus of my musical maturity too, moving forward from 90s electronica to the present day, while also charting out the past, back through electro, rare groove, funk and all the great music old yore that I’ve since discovered and subsequently devoured.
Altern 8 were origin-8-ers, innov-8-ers, rave gene-8-ors, party instig-8-ors, crazy publicity stunt orchestr-8-ers and timeless choon cre-8-osrs.
In this jaded age of aristocratic insta-posers, moody modular gothkeepers, glorified synch-clown creampie jockeys and relentless streams of tedious tech house bollocks, it’s easy to forget how enjoyable, inventive and impulsive dance music can actually be.
Full On Mask Hysteria provides serious synth-l-8tion from start to finish while reminding us all not to take ourselves so seriously. It’s music that makes you go, “fuck it, why not!?”
So slather that Vicks on nice and thick (careful where you apply it though, it burns) go grab yourself a copy of this 90s masterpiece and crank it way up to the max – just be careful not to obliter-8 your bassbins.
Cu l8r alig-8rs