can someone tell me everything they know about metro area please ?

(You'll p'bly find scattered ILM info through the search function.)

(They've also been in all the dance mags the last couple months.)

(Will say more later?)

Tracer -- Stars on 45?

In other words, a great dance-not-dance album. Would be interested to hear them do some vocals tho.

Darshan's definitely had a lot to do with Morgan's own obsession with disco, and you definitely can't take the techno out of Morgan since that's where he's coming from. (The Driving Memoirs, from '97, is a phenomenal techno record with so many ideas and sounds; his 12"s on Metamorphic and Environ have some thrilling moments too.) So Ben makes a good point that the disco/techno meeting point is much closer to halfway than a lot of people make it. Admittedly, I am much more excited by hearing a buried reference to some old Emergency 12" than a Transmat 12".

In a loose sense, Metro Area are a realization of what would've happened if early techno producers had allowed for disco and boogie (Logg, Taana Gardner, D-Train, Cloud One) to seep into their work more than the usual suspects (Kraftwerk, Ultravox, CV). Yet, they have their ways of extracting themselves from obvious points of reference. Part of their charm for me is the sense of space they create in their tracks while including so many elements -- they do this on a level that no one else can touch. Another great aspect is how their tracks are so musical/melodic that you can often forget they're instrumentals.

As far as vocals are considered, that could happen down the road. I asked Morgan if he'd ever consider working with people like Burgess, Jocelyn Brown, Christine Wiltshire, etc, and he said he'd rather find some new freaky voice. He brought up Is It All Over My Face, and how hardly anyone can tell you who that is -- he'd rather have it work out that way. I do like what they did with the vocals on Miura (that's Dei Lewison, daughter of Kleeer's Woody Cunningham, btw). However, I'd also like to hear something in the full-blown verse-chorus-verse vein.

But Derrick May always sounds so disco to me. And Kevin Saunderson drew pretty obviously from it, via house. Detroit is a lot more varied than either the purists or the haters would have you believe.

Also Metro Area tracks are generally slower than most techno.

Probably also important to consider Daniel Wang's friendship and working relationship with Morgan Geist.

Apparently there's a DFA remix of MA's Orange Alert making the rounds. Anyone heard it?

if and when my metro area review ever goes up, i do (kinda, sorta) take them to task for this, but i forgive them, in the end, because the music is so lovely.

Those were the days!

I went to see Etienne De Crecy/Alex Gopher the week of that thread, I went alone but met some friends there. It was the only night I ever heard a DJ play "Too Long" by Daft Punk in a club.

Afterwards I went to a party in this guys house with 2 friends of mine who knew him. His girlfriend had left the key in the inside side of the door and he couldn't open it. She wouldn't wake up from knocking so eventually he climbed a palm tree in the garden. But when he got to the top he couldn't reach her window to knock so he instructed us to start swinging it.

Of course just as he knocked and she opened the window, it made a massive crack and broke. I couldn't stop laughing.

We brought the tree into the house to make it up to her.

These?

proton candy - starts out with electro pulses, then drops in some electro cowbell, shakers, handclaps and the "la rock 01" drum kit. then, instead of turning into an italo anthem, he quickly swerves into detroit synthwork (deepest shade of techno style). at about two minutes these thick layers of basic channel echo and hiss threaten to overwhelm the track but rapidly disperse and the italo-corny main theme is restated. the detroit synths come back in, dissolve into the same echoey haze and we're abruptly back to italo (again). some frustrated off-key synth bashing introduces a long "disco circus" breakdown, where the different percussive bits vie for attention over weird bass noodling. finally the split personalities of the track are reconciled at the end with the help of envelope filters which smooth out the transition between the two themes.

"proton candy" is a super-epic track, it reminds me of "timecode" for some reason that i can't put into words but i think it's actually better.

there's an odd jazz-funk edge to the track too. on reflection maybe the main bit is less italo and more "theme from barney miller".

Mad props to the Jersey Devil Social Club record as well, especially the third segment of Homage at 121.