I'm listening to James Ruskin's second album, 'Point 2', today because I'm writing a piece about him and my initial reaction is that it has aged really well. There are some straight down the middle dance floor tracks, some brilliant, chilling ambience a la Mills's 'Metropolis' album, the superb Detroit techno funk style 'Connected' and my undisputed favourite, 'Detached', where, over a rolling dense groove, brooding symphonic strings gradually descend. Ruskin followed 'Point 2' the next year (2001) with an even better album, 'Into Submission', also for Tresor and which further explores this brooding, dense sound. Despite the fact that electronic music is (supposedly) meant to move at lightning speed, it's interesting that both works - and remember, these are albumns, not a format that many producers have mastered - sound so fresh. One of the reasons I'd put forward for this is that the land (or should that be sound?) scape that techno now inhabits bears a far closer resemblance to the early part of this decade than it has done for years. Everyone from Sandwell District to Samuli Kemppi - and there are loads of names in between, I'd prefer if others fill in the blanks - are drawing on nuances and aesthetics that were developed during the late 90s and early 00s. The other, more obvious and bland reply is that great music is timeless, even in a creatively hyper-kinetic area as electronic music. I would imagine that most people would agree with the second reason, but what about the first explanation? Have we gone back to go forward?
