It’s been quite a while since we last heard from the Clan Analogue collective’s label arm; three years in fact, since the twin salvo release of Bleepin’ J Squawkins’ debut album and the accompanying ‘Doppler Shift’s electro-centric various artists compilation. While the collective (originally founded by Brendan Palmer in a Sydney apartment back in 1992) may have been comparatively quiet of late, this latest release, this expansive and sweetly packaged retrospective collection sees Clan Analogue reactivating with considerable style. In this case, the contents are split up between a first audio CD that collects together classic tracks from Clan Analogue’s membership, a second disc concentrating on remixes of older tracks by the collective’s newer cast of artists, and an accompanying DVD packed to the brim with visual material. For longtime Clan Analogue listeners such as myself, the first CD offers up a vivid memory-lane trip back through the last eighteen years of Australian electronic music, and it’s particularly interesting to track the way in which Clan shifted from being a more anarchic collective, to a more organised ‘label’ structure over its continuing lifespan. The inclusion of tracks from some of the label’s more well-known alumni such as Disco Stu’s ‘An Englishman In Ibiza’, B(if)tek’s ‘Bedrock’ and appearances from a young Infusion and Itch-E & Scratch-E also charts a point in the late nineties where Clan collective members were starting to reach crossover audiences nationally, thanks to play on Triple J and RAGE. Astutely however, the tracklisting here highlights the sheer diversity of styles being covered amidst the Clan collective.
For every extrovert dancefloor moment such as Bleepin’ J Squawkins’ electroclash-centred ‘Minerva Moog Part 1’ or Continuum’s paranoiac and tech-y ‘Neurosis’, there’s a more stripped back and experimentally minded offering to be found – see the constantly shifting, dry rhythmic interlock of Two4K’s ‘Elite’ and the spooky elastic rubber tones of 5000 Fingers Of Dr T’s ‘Mind Stretch.’ The second remix-oriented disc meanwhile manages to pack more than its fair share of impressive surprises, and it’s particularly gratifying to see early Clan moments such as Eidolon’s ‘Return to Donnelaith’ and the locked vinyl groove loops of ‘CALG101’ given more dancefloor-friendly reworkings, alongside obvious shoe-ins like B(if)tek’s ‘We Think You’re Dishy’ (still arguably Clan’s best-known moment to date). For hardcore Clan followers though, it’s the exhaustive accompanying DVD that offers up the real gold here, containing pretty much all of Clan’s music videos to date, alongside an excellent retrospective documentary and early live footage from the Goethe Institut performance. As a bonus, there’s also a download-only rarities collection accessible using a password that comes with the package. Given the size of Clan Analogue’s past and present membership and its degree of influence upon the development of Australian electronic music over the past two decades, coming up with a retrospective collection that did justice to its continuing legacy was always going to be a formidable task – thankfully ‘Re Cognition’ more than lives up to the high expectations.
Chris Downton
