Astralwerks
1999
Programmed
About This Album
Legions of dance producers have used jazz as a crutch, sampling crackly old Blue Note LPs to get just the right vibes for their productions (or occasionally even recruiting actual musicians to appear on tracks), but then paying little attention to how -- or, more importantly, if -- those elements work within their own creations. Leave it to Carl Craig, the most artistic, uncompromising techno producer around, to produce an album on par with the best recent work in either field. The beats are more upfront than on Craig's last solo record (More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art), but this album has a very similar concept; it's a work of electronic music in the abstract that rejects the accepted standards of any style of music, whether it's techno, electronica, jazzy house, or recent fusion. As can be guessed from the title, Programmed is not an acoustic, band recording -- although several tracks feature the full Innerzone Orchestra (no more than four pieces), most are just as programmed as Craig's previous work. Still, percussionist Francisco Mora Catlett and keyboard player Craig Taborn do have a large presence on the album, from the sublime electro-jazz on "Basic Math" and "At Les" (a new version of the Carl Craig standard) to the gorgeous comping of Taborn over thick, frenetic acid lines on "Eruption.
Track List (try tracks 2,4,5,6,7,9,11,12,13 and 14)

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