Rhythms take centre stage through ‘World Of Echo’, simple strums and complex, interlocking arrangements propel the record forward with a percussive-like energy that it achieves without any drums. Recorded using just a cello and his voice, which he manipulated with a whole host of electronic effects, its impressively diverse tracklist can be pointed to as the prototype for many styles of electronic music that followed. When he did, though, the results were exquisite, and his 1986 album ‘World Of Echo’ is an unquestionable masterpiece. Russell was a perfectionist who struggled to consider works finished, relentlessly tinkering with tracks and making numerous versions. His legacy can be found all over, from the label Audika Records set-up solely to release his catalogue of experiments to the spate of club nights and music projects named after his output (such as Lucky Cloud, Kiss Me Again, Wild Combination, Let's Go Swimming and Jame Blakes’s 1-800-Dinosaur outfit) to an endless list of artists sampling his music, including Kanye West for ‘The Life Of Pablo’ cut ‘30 Hours’. But posthumous focus his work and the archives he left behind has been extensive, establishing Russell as an all-time great. Like many innovators, he was sadly underappreciated in his time, dying in relative anonymity and poverty. Russell was a true trailblazer, so far ahead of his time that music is still catching up to his developments. Despite the oppression they faced on an institutional level, the queer community persevered as a vital source of creative inspiration. Passing a full decade on from Cowley in 1992, Russell’s death is symbolic of the Reagan presidency’s homophobia-fuelled policy of near-total inaction through the 80s (audio tapes emerged in 2015 of the administration laughing and making homophobic jokes during briefings on the crisis). Like an earlier entrant on this list, Patrick Cowley, Arthur Russell was a world-changing genius taken too early by the scourge of AIDs. The LP’s title-track also contains a production trick wherein the bass drum is momentarily cut out before returning in full force for some added kick - a technique later popularised as “the drop” and repackaged in sterile, commercial releases that are a million miles from the revolutionary vitality of ‘Menergy’. John Hedges, who for a time ran the Megatone Records label Cowley founded alongside Marty Blecman, described Cowley’s apartment as a “mess of wires” that “didn’t look very safe”, commenting on the intricate and ingenious patching experiments Cowley undertook to achieve his range of synth sounds, long before you could just turn a dial on Ableton to add delay. Making lyrical references to same-sex attraction and bathroom hook-ups above glistening production, it’s an unabashed celebration of the gay scene that forged the culture, crackling with the vibrancy of the dancefloors housed within nightspots’ X-rated walls.Ĭowley devised numerous technical innovations to achieve this dazzling sound. In the 70s, Moroder and Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ sparked the beginnings of hedonistic rave, and as the decade turned, Patrick Cowley’s Hi-NRG masterpiece signalled disco morphing into the ‘dance music’ phenomenon that has endured ever since. ‘Menergy’ drove dance music forward on an exultant wave of intangibles and precision, capturing the spiritual essence of the birth of clubbing culture in a set of meticulously-crafted tracks. We called upon our bursting pool of contributors from over the years and our trusted members of staff to give an accurate representation of electronic music's evolution over the last four decades. Here we present the 50 most influential dance music albums of all time, no easy task to compile as you can imagine. Whatever your preference, we've been truly spoiled and when it comes to albums, there have been some true cornerstones of relevance that have not only got us dancing, but inspired and influenced the next wave of artists to bring forth something, new, exciting and progressive. How can you forget UKG rearing it's mischievous, bumping head or even that behemoth they call EDM taking over the minds of millions around the world. From the Summer Of Love, where acid house and ecstasy reigned supreme, to the birth of techno in light of political and social oppression. We've experienced not only a wealth of incredible electronic music over the last 40 years or so, we've seen it spur on cultural movements and define the lives of generations.
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