



Power Vacuum LOTM mix Milo Smee steps out as Bintus on this showcase of Power Vacuum's rough and rowdy style.





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Filesize /

143 MB



Length /

59:54



Tracklist /

Bintus - Lightnin (POWVAC010 - forthcoming)

Bintus - Corrosion Control (POWVAC001)

Invincible Scum - Scumrush (POWVAC004)

JoeFarr & J. Tijn - Mustard Sucker (POWVAC008)

Mark Broom - Beat Mix (POWVAC005)

An-i - Convo (POWVAC008)

JoeFarr - Sentry (POWVAC009)

Objekt - Balloons (POWVAC008)

EDMX - I'm Rushing My Tits Off (POWVAC002)

Bintus - Paracelsus Beat (POWVAC007)

EDMX - Star Blast (POWVAC006)

JoeFarr - Rampart (POWVAC009)

EDMX - Frozen Stomp (POWVAC006)

Positive Merge - Note (POWVAC008)

EDMX - Cerberus (POWVAC002)

Bintus - Point Counter Point (POWVAC003)

Bintus - Advanced fuel (POWVAC001)

Cylob - Spyworld (POWVAC011 - forthcoming)

Cornwallis - At The Disco (POWVAC011 - forthcoming)

Milo Smee steps out as Bintus on this showcase of Power Vacuum's rough and rowdy style.143 MB59:54Bintus - Lightnin (POWVAC010 - forthcoming)Bintus - Corrosion Control (POWVAC001)Invincible Scum - Scumrush (POWVAC004)JoeFarr & J. Tijn - Mustard Sucker (POWVAC008)Mark Broom - Beat Mix (POWVAC005)An-i - Convo (POWVAC008)JoeFarr - Sentry (POWVAC009)Objekt - Balloons (POWVAC008)EDMX - I'm Rushing My Tits Off (POWVAC002)Bintus - Paracelsus Beat (POWVAC007)EDMX - Star Blast (POWVAC006)JoeFarr - Rampart (POWVAC009)EDMX - Frozen Stomp (POWVAC006)Positive Merge - Note (POWVAC008)EDMX - Cerberus (POWVAC002)Bintus - Point Counter Point (POWVAC003)Bintus - Advanced fuel (POWVAC001)Cylob - Spyworld (POWVAC011 - forthcoming)Cornwallis - At The Disco (POWVAC011 - forthcoming)

Smee was going through other big changes at the time. He left Chrome Hoof after the release of 2010's, and began spending more time in Berlin. But his next re-invention looked back to his roots. Raised in Essex, Smee was a couple of years too young for the Second Summer Of Love, and "not popular enough" to score a lift from his tiny village to the huge outdoor raves then girdling London each weekend. Instead, his formative raving experiences were in Colchester club Tutu's, where from '91 to '93 he observed hardcore techno's vertiginous ascent into what would become jungle and happy hardcore."My mind was definitely blown by hardcore rave," Smee says. "It's probably the reason I'm doing what I'm doing now. A word that used to be said all the time was, 'Oh, that's mental.' No one had ever heard these sounds before, it was completely new. Then you go there next week and somehow they've upped the ante—someone's found amental sound."Combined with a latecomer's love for acid house and a childhood obsession with electro, it was these raving experiences that inspired Bintus. That, and an opportunity Smee had been dreaming of for years. In 2011, a friend from the Sameheads crowd, Joe Seaton, mentioned that another friend, TJ Hertz, had a 303 to lend for a few days. Smee also realised he could borrow another friend's 808. '"It was like, 'Fucking hell, the planets are going to be in alignment for a very short period," he says, now nursing a lethal Trappist beer in the second bar of the evening. The ensuing three-day session yielded huge amounts of material. "I got out of it much more than I'd hoped," Smee says, estimating he has "another ten undeveloped jams" from that period, on top of the five or so that have already been released.Smee's initial plan was to start a digital label, selecting two tracks for its debut: the steroidal acid stomper "Corrosion Control" and the diamond-edged Dopplereffekt-style grooves of "Advanced Fuel." When he played the tracks to Seaton, who is now better known as Call Super, and Hertz, who was gaining plaudits for his work as Objekt, they had other ideas."As soon as they heard the first two tracks, they said, 'You should definitely put this on vinyl.' I felt really out of the game. I didn't really know what music was popular. Objekt, people really liked what he did. Joe is a very good communicator, he knows loads of people. And both of those things I wasn't at the time. I'd kind of already tried that a few times on my own, through the years, and it never quite worked. So to have these two younger guys on my side was really nice."Hertz put Smee in touch with his distributors, Rubadub, while Smee's old friend Fergus "Fergadelic" Purcell created a logo. Power Vacuum was born and, taking the rough but playful aesthetic of Bintus as its template, set about establishing itself. Early releases from Broom, Rephlex veteran EDMX, and Invincible Scum, Smee's duo with Andy Blake, suggested a focus on the old guard. But Smee was surprised by the response from younger listeners and producers, too."I'd thought that the stuff I loved was quite out of touch with what's going on now," Smee says. "But that got blown out of the water when I played in Glasgow at La Cheetah for these young guys called Offbeat. We were having a mix-up round their house before the gig. I had a load of this old techno and rave stuff that hasn't left my bag for 20 years. And they were all like, 'Yeah, I like this one, I've got two copies!' It gave me a massive lift, to know that young people are aware of the sounds that I'm into. And not only are they aware of it, they really dig it."Smee's focus has since broadened, with younger producers J. Tijn, JoeFarr and Objekt appearing on the label's first compilation,. In explaining what he looks for in a new signing, Smee draws on those earliest experiences at Tutu's, and that word, "mental.""It's the audio equivalent of Op-art, or Cubism, where your brain can't quite process what's going on," Smee says. He recounts having a "breakdown of the senses" at a Bridget Riley exhibition, laughing in disbelief at a flat picture that tricked his brain into thinking it was 3D. "When you have music that messes with your perception, is ungraspable, and still it rocks the dance floor, then that's as close to my holy grail as I can think of at the moment."In Smee's work as Bintus, this pursuit of the ungraspable has been developed to a fine art. This year's, the label's tenth release, feels focussed and assured, from the remorseless throb of "Reflections On Brown" to the glutinous acid techno of "Warwick Castle Meltdown." "Looking In Your Fridge," in particular, reflects Smee's discombobulating credos: there's something incredibly vivid and tactile to the way its sounds squeal and squelch themselves into oblivion.Still, Smee—no stranger to reinvention—is already thinking about a new direction. When asked about the future of the label, he enthuses about "the marriage of live musicianship and electronics," an approach that, from the doomy disco of Chrome Hoof to the loose grooves of his Dissident hits, has animated much of his work. Futurecompilations, he suggests, might feature a side of guitar music alongside more standard Power Vacuum material. "A lot of people I've spoken to have said, 'You should start another label for that.' It's a chancy thing," he concedes. "When it works well, it's amazing. When it works badly it's terrible. And I like high-risk stuff."By this point we've bumped into one of the Sameheads brothers, out to see a friend's band perform. He and Smee go back to the bar for another drink and the tail end of the pub quiz. Smee is racking his brains for any final thoughts on the direction of the label. "I've been advised, 'If you were a bit more aware of what was going on, you could do yourself favours in terms of what position Power Vacuum is in,'" he says."Part of me thinks, 'You're absolutely right.' But a bigger part of me thinks I want to engage less. Because the guy in his own little world, pushing forward in one direction, to me is much more valuable than someone who's very well-versed in everything that's going on, and takes a bit from that and a bit from that to make something that maybe appeals to more people, you know what I mean? So in a way I want to close myself off. That's what's good about kind of hammering at it for a long time. The stuff you worry about and think is important—other people's opinions—just starts to drop away."