Drop Beat

In a world where music is continually compromised and watered down to increase sales to lowest common denominator consumers, it is so pleasing to find labels like Drop Beat flourishing. The brainchild of Mike Schulman, Drop Beat showcases the best in abstract experimental electronic music.

Chessie
Chessie's music is far removed from the strictures of the dance floor. It is a soundscape that conjures images both oceanic and gritty, a rhythmic train ride through that long, dark tunnel...

Signal Series - 1997
Meet - 1999
Overnight - 2001


Kit Clayton
Kit Clayton is the number one representative of the new techno sound emanating from the West Coast -- in particular, San Francisco. Clayton, along with the likes of Sutekh and DJ Jasper, is redefining this genre, adding his own distinctive, minimal sound.

Repetition And Nonsense - 1999
Latke - 2001


Downpour
Highly abstract, experimental music is the specialty of both the artist Downpour and the label Drop Beat. Imagine Aphex Twin trapped in a subterranean ice maze with Kirk Degorgio and Squarepusher. This is what they would come up with.

Destroy It Yourself 12


H.S.O.
H.S.O. is a collaboration between three talented Bay Area producers: DJ Sifu, dawgisht, and Flemme Fatale. Although they cannot decide what the H.S.O. should stand for (Hill Side Oakland and Hot Stewed Opossum are two possibilities), they are all very much focused on their music. If you like experimental, abstract drum and bass then play away.

H.S.Overload EP


Sutekh
Sutekh is the latest in a growing number of high-profile, minimal techno producers to step out of the Bay Area. His work on Drop Beat and Force Inc. (home to Ian Pooley and Mark Ambrose) shines with originality and purpose. Is this the breaking of a new dawn for techno?

Influenza


Timeblind
Timeblind, a self-confessed migrant worker at heart, claims to have evolved into an amphibian after a brief spell playing tuba with the Jewish navy. Although I have a sneaky suspicion he's telling porky pies, his vivid imagination is very much apparent in his production.

Cataclysmajiggy
Bloatware - 2000