Ron Trent. Not from Stoke on Trent.

The proletariat have seized the means of production.  Music production, that is.  


Any halfwit with a copy of Ableton, Cubase and Reason can bang together a semi respectable track these days.  A myriad of sounds, instruments and, snyths, all at your fingertips.  The options have never been more varied, the price never more accessible.


So why do tracks like this and other offerings from the late 80's/ early 90's wipe the floor with today's output?   Nostalgia?  A meandering walk down Memory Lane?  Perhaps.  But I wasn't attending raves under the M42. I was 10 when this badboy came out. I might have looked older than my age (something I exploited to the full a few years later) but I didn't look that old.   I only discovered these gems a few years into my conversion to House music, circa 1995 onwards. 


So what is it?  


A Guy Called Gerald   ( Mr Gerald Simpson to his postman)  described his  Roland TB-303 bass synthesiser and the TR-808 as a sort of time machine, the idea that the beat of the drum has performed a vital role in group and tribal gatherings since the year dot.  He is merely the conduit, duplicating, repeating and harnessing this ancient power.


It's an interesting concept, but where do the bleeps come into it?   After much deliberation,  I am of the opinion that Ron Trent,  Kevin Saunderson, Marshall Jefferson and all the other early pioneers were sent here from another planet.  What else could reasonably explain the gulf in class?  Those bleep sounds were merely a form of communication, the opening salvo in our integration into a wider cosmos.   I accept that this moment of clarity might be heavily influenced by lack of sleep and spending way too much time on David Icke's website recently,  but a world run by lizard people and aliens is -quite frankly- not as scary as a world with Sarah Palin, David Cameron and Nicolas Sar Co Zeee manning the controls.