8 Tracks: Of Bleep Techno From Canada With Ciel

 
Music

Toronto based producer Ciel is set to release a new EP on Shanti Celeste's Peach Discs. The up and comer has cut her teeth with determination and promise, running parties and playing a highly active role within the local scene. Her new record is a carefully crafted assortment of delicate pads, intricately programmed drums and dreamy soundscapes. As a debut it is definitive and striking. 

We invited her to contribute to our eight tracks series, a selector full of promise she has delivered an exemplary assortment of tracks reflective of her love of Bleep Techno, all with a Canadian twist. 

See below…


Follow Ciel on Facebook HERE. Photograph courtesy of Samuel Engulfing.

Infra-Red - Calibrate This

I like to incorporate bleep tracks in a lot of my sets because I find them to be incredibly versatile tools that sound futuristic while still carrying a lot of atmosphere and groove, plus they mix well with a lot of styles I love to play like breaks and electro. I especially love playing bleep tracks that came out of early 90s Canada because a lot of people tend to associate bleep with the UK and had no idea this was a craze that swept scenes all over the world in the 90s. This is one of my all time favourite bleep tracks, made by two of Toronto’s early 90s house pioneers, Ron Allen and Hayden Andre Brown. I love the earworm melody of the synth line, and the beautiful simplicity of the robotic vocal sample. I’ve been playing this record for years and I still haven’t gotten tired of it!

  • Infra-Red - Calibrate This

    I like to incorporate bleep tracks in a lot of my sets because I find them to be incredibly versatile tools that sound futuristic while still carrying a lot of atmosphere and groove, plus they mix well with a lot of styles I love to play like breaks and electro. I especially love playing bleep tracks that came out of early 90s Canada because a lot of people tend to associate bleep with the UK and had no idea this was a craze that swept scenes all over the world in the 90s. This is one of my all time favourite bleep tracks, made by two of Toronto’s early 90s house pioneers, Ron Allen and Hayden Andre Brown. I love the earworm melody of the synth line, and the beautiful simplicity of the robotic vocal sample. I’ve been playing this record for years and I still haven’t gotten tired of it!

  • Transcendence Magique Noir

    A lot of the best early 90s bleep and house records in Canada were released on Strobe, a label based in Toronto and founded by Ron Allen and Hayden Andre Brown (a.k.a. Infra-red). Transcendence’s Concepts of Higher Dimension is probably my second favourite Strobe release, mostly because of the bongo-heavy B2, Magique Noire. A lot of my favourite bleep records combine the organic sounds of hand drums with the synthetic sounds of bleeps, a contrast that works wonderfully on this track. Everytime I play this track, someone asks for the ID. I’m especially a big fan of the alien-sounding flute melody that comes in near the 3 minute mark, only to disappear without a trace 30 seconds later. Bleep took a lot of cues from Jamaican music, specifically dub, and that combined with the squelch of gnarly acid lines is magic to my ears.

  • Z-Formation - Sound Waves

    Z-Formation was the side alias of another Canadian early house hero, Nick Holder (of DNH records). He went on to make some of the most loved deep house tracks of the 90s, but the tracks that stuck with me the most were his bleep production. I found this record for $1 two years ago in the discount bin of a Toronto record shop that mostly carries jazz and boogie. It was my first time learning artists in Toronto were making music like this in the 90s. Nowadays I feel I’ve dug so much deeper into bleep, but I still always come back to this track. I find a lot of my less-favoured bleep tracks suffer from a lack of self-editing, which isn’t an issue here since the best thing about “Sound Waves” is how deceptively simple it sounds while still serving SO much atmosphere (those choral samples that sound like literal waves). As a DJ I’m drawn to more minimalist styles of music, and tunes that deliver a lot of impact with seemingly very little. This track has that in spades.

  • Nick Holder- Cloud Nine

    There were a lot of beloved bleep tracks with melody lines that were dissonant and at times bordering on cacophonous. But that was definitely a style that showed itself as bleep diverged into hardcore in the UK, and less so in the Canadian bleep scene where bleeps were still for the most part harmonious and had lots of room to breathe. This track under Nick Holder’s main alias was released in 1992 on a double EP called Digital Age. Composed of a minor bleep melody loop, a hypnotic bassline, dreamy as heck pads and shuffly snares, this track sounds spacy and futuristic but with just the right amount of warmth and nostalgia. Like watching sci-fi movies made in the 70s, it manages to be both futuristic and of the past at the same time.

  • F.U.S.E-Approach And Identify

    F.U.S.E. (or Futuristic Underground Subsonic Experiments) was an eary 90s alias of Richie Hawtin’s, without a doubt the DJ/ producer Canadians most want to declare ownership over. The guy was born in Windsor, Ontario, so we’ll just leave it at that. Most early F.U.S.E records released on his own imprint Plus 8 covered the ambient techno + acid realms, but Richie also dabbled quite a bit in bleep, and even went on to collab with LFO and release on THE seminal bleep label, Warp. To be fair, his bleep tracks were really good, and Approach & Identify in particular is a favourite of mine to play. The spacey bleeps that remind me of spaceship sounds conceived in vintage scifi movies, the soft and mysterious vocal refrain, the deep sub bass, and the intricate programming of the snares & rim shots are all so wonderful on this track.

  • Psyance Eq

    Psyance is another bleep alias of Ron Allen & Hayden Andre Brown. The records they released on Plus 8 were truly special, and the Motion EP where this track comes from is probably in my top 5 favourite bleep records of all time. So simple and yet so impactful and atmospheric, each track is a dancefloor bomb and it was such a challenge for me to pick just one track from the release. In the end I went with ‘EQ’ because it was my first taste of the record and as such carries some sentimental meaning with it, and I just love the bassline in it so much!! Pads add an element of dreamy mystery to it, and I can never get that synthline melody out of my head after hearing it. FYI “Andromeda’s Dance” from the same release is also a 10/10 bleep gem.

  • States Of Mind - Elements Of Tone (Jsa Mix)

    States of Mind was a collaborative project between Mr. Plastikman and John Acquaviva, who were also the co-founders of Plus 8 recordings. The name of this track, as well as the use of studio test tone bleeps and the vocal sample always reminded me of the classic bleep techno record by Sweet Exorcist called Testone. But whereas Testone was off-kilter and ominous, Elements of Tone by States of Mind has more of a swinging, confident drive, and in my experience works better on a dancefloor at peak time. Sampling is such a core component of bleep techno, and this track features plenty of strange sounds, including what appears to be cat meows, evil laughter, and spacey swirled bloops that come in at the 2min20sec mark that sound like they came The Jetsons.

  • The Hayden Andre Project Broken Chains

    My greatest wish was that Hayden Andre Brown made way more bleep tracks than he released in his day. For sure, every style he touched was nothing short of brilliant, but the bleep productions were in a universe of their own. This is the sole bleep track from his 1991 record Tribal Life, and I’m a big fan of the fusion of bleep and deep house elements. Hand drums combined with sampled vocal “woo”‘s work really well layered with reverb-heavy rim shots, a groovy as hell bassline, horror movie bleeps, and minor piano chords. A very versatile track that mixes well with bongo-heavy house tracks and bleep techno alike.

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