Reviewing this reissued album is interesting because Stafford, UK-based duo Altern 8 were responsible for introducing me to rave, and thus dance music / events in general. When Chris Peat and Mark Archer originally released their debut album as Altern 8 ‘Full-On Mask Hysteria’ back in 1992 on the heels of a slew of underground 12” hits, they were poised at the vanguard of rave’s crossover to a mainstream audience. But while peers such as The Prodigy went on to pack stadiums around the world, by 1994 the working relationship between Peat and Archer had soured, with the latter going on to explore more house-oriented productions as Slo-Moshun.
Listening to this newly reissued and remastered album 24 years on, it’s striking how Altern 8 encapsulate all of UK rave’s outlaw aspects from a time where the British authorities were just starting to cotton on to dance music as a threat. Indeed, there’s a confrontational and apocalyptic edge to much of the music here, with harsh stabbing synths and ‘ardcore breakbeats battling for space with sirens (see ‘Armageddon’) and robotic synthesised vocals, that works perfectly with the omnipresent biohazard suits and industrial facemasks favoured by the duo during all photo sessions and live shows.
The familiar intro to ‘E-Vapor8’ still sounds as just as hard-hitting more than two decades on as sampled crowd noise gives way to diva vocal samples and that distinctive decending bass synth pattern that adds an underlying feeling of doominess to the acid squelches and stabbed out piano riffs. There’s even a bright synth-laden mid-section that’s a clear homage to rave peers 808 State, but if ‘E-Vapor8’ represented Altern 8’s closest thing to a crossover hit, many of the other tracks inhabit far more forbidding and edgy territory, perhaps suggesting that the duo had less interest in mainstream success than satisfying their underground fanbase.
Warehouse party calling card ‘Frequency’ sees chaotic distorted rave stabs battling for space with chunky breakbeats and a buzzing acid synthline, and that’s before you even get to the James Brown samples, the female backing vocal refrain adding a candy-coated edge to the scorched-earth atmospherics, while ‘Armageddon’ offers up a ferocious throttle through air raid sirens, clattering metallic drum breaks and monotonously stabbing bass synths that suddenly crashes halfway into a wall of distorted industrial noise, only for acid 303 squelches to suddenly take over the mix against pitched up female vocal samples.
The additional remixes included with this remastered edition certainly don’t disappoint, though it’s curious that they’re scattered throughout the tracklisting here. Predictably, Luke Vibert’s impressive tongue-in-cheek rehaul of ‘Frequency’ proves to be one of the biggest highlights here, although KiNK’s spacious tech-house reworking of ‘Armageddon’ manages to give it a good run in terms of quality. It seems surprising that it’s taken this long for this seminal dance album to receive a reissue, and given that the original vinyl pressing was apparently atrocious, there’s likely to be many listeners keen to get their hands on this excellent re-release.
