Reviews

BYO1 - Slow Rotor/ Eba/ F.(LU)X./ Sub Texture - "Space Disco EP" (vinyl 12", 1993)

Piccadilly Records (Manchester) (c. 2010)

Well this is pretty interesting. A mysterious white label offering with some retro-futurist, Tron-like imagery on the stickered sleeve. Five tracks of crisp, bouncy house music with a cosmic/space disco theme running throughout. Slow Rotor kick things off with "Space Disco". While the instrumental edit is a joyful, string-led number, the Dub Edit takes things on a deeper, more clubby tip. Both excellent tracks. Eba close side A with "Elephungk (Percapella)" which is a squelchy, wigged-out tech-house track with garnishes of intergalactic effects. A handy DJ tool for dark cavernous nightclubs. F.(lu)X. gives us "Head (F.)lu(X.)" on the flip. A catchy, arpeggio-driven track with nice sub-bass and a groovy, nu-disco rhythm sped up to a mid-paced house tempo... Sub Texture end the journey with "Guiro"; a slow, electronic broken beat/synth workout with dark, alien undertones and anti-gravity keyboard and bass sequences...

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Popsike.com ..............................

BYO2 - Caution!Horses - "According to your Cloth" (limited edition CDr album, 2017)

Piccadilly Records (Manchester).....

Vinyl Resting Place (Manchester)

I have a limited supply of these left, local producer Caution!Horses with a masterpiece 7-track mini album of moody analogue techno with an often tough, experimental edge. Andrew Odia was also responsible for the amazing, ahead-of-its-time Space Disco EP in 1993. There are only 4 left of this CD - a future classic and not to be missed for house/techno boffins!

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BYO3 - Caution!Horses - "Waiting for You (Versions) EP" (limited edition 4-track CDr EP, June 2018)

Piccadilly Records (Manchester)

Following up cult Northwest techno releases BYO1 and BYO2 comes, you've guessed it, BYO3! Entitled "Waiting for You (Versions)" it displays a manic and quite discordant side to this maverick producer; pairing a Detroitian, sci-fi inclined mindset to gritty post-Industrial Revolution aesthetics. If Detroit techno sound tracked the collapse of the Motor City, then C!H surely captures the crumbling heart of NW satellite towns after the cotton, mining and shoe industries all vacated the area.

"Waiting for You" comes in four different flavours, but based around that same concentric, cranium-busting synth hook. Recorded between 2004-2005, mastered by Keir Stewart at Inch Studios and famously road-tested on the sound system at Sheffield's Scuba club, it's a jarring and club ready listen, miles ahead of its time and indeed heralding in the plethora of techno hybrids that'd break off as the noughties progressed. Glitchy and hard-wired, C!H is the master at getting his machines to chatter.

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Vinyl Resting Place (Manchester)

Got some more CDr copies of the latest EP from Manchester techno institution Caution!Horses in stock, like the previous release these are really limited in amount and are this time housed in a wicked fabric sleeve. Proper DIY release this! All versions of his track "Waiting for You". For those not familiar, this is timeless Detroit-esque analogue techno with a distinctive off-kilter edge. He has a very unique signature sound, one that is always gonna sound fresh. There's only less than 100 of these ever been pressed so don't miss one!

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Sounds of the Universe (London).....

Jumbo (Leeds)

Hypnotic and repetitious bleeps and bounces reminiscent of early Yellow Magic Orchestra, but danceable...

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Gramaphone Records (Chicago)

Nice work...

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BYO4 - Caution!Horses - "MoveSweatLove EP" (limited edition 3-track CDr EP, April 2019)

Piccadilly Records (Manchester)..............................

BYO5 - Caution!Horses - "Pod People (Versions) EP" (limited edition 4-track CDr EP, October 2019)

Bandcloud #276 (13-12-2019)..............................

BYO6 - Caution!Horses - "The Way Back Forward" (limited edition CDr album, 2021)

Eastern Bloc (Manchester)

"The Way Back Forward" is the follow up to Cheetham Hill artist Caution!Horses' 2017 debut album, "According to Your Cloth" ("A wonderful and completely under-the-radar offering of DIY electronix, forward-leaning techno and industrialised utopia... (Like BYO1), another stone cold epic into the annals of UK electronica..." Kickin' Pigeon/Piccadilly Records). ATYC (BYO2) was the first new Byo-Jo Recordings release in 25 years, with C!H citing three tracks that had caught his imagination years previously as influencing his style: the Sheffield/Berlin collaboration of Robert Gordon and David Moufang (View to View) that gave us tracks Heptagon and Seven Hills; and Drexciya's Davey Jones Locker out of Detroit. All possess a timeless beauty and simplicity, and C!H used these as a template to create his own brand of understated techno in Manchester. ATYC went on to draw comparisons with tracks by luminaries including Herbie Hancock, B12 and Model 500. "The Way Back Forward" is inspired by that same Sheffield/Berlin/Detroit sound. While ATYC can be seen as a statement of intent re. a new musical direction at the time it was written, the theme of TWBF is autobiographical. Featuring a collaboration with north Manchester's Urban Technological Assault, across seven tracks the album tells a salutary tale of highs, lows and final redemption. In common with all recent Byo-Jo Recordings releases, the album comes as a limited edition plain black CDr (16-bit WAV files in physical form), hand numbered in a black pocket.

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Technique (Tokyo)..............................

BYO7 - Caution!Horses - "Waiting for You (Volume 2) EP" (limited edition 4-track CDr EP, February 2022)

Eastern Bloc (Manchester)..............................