Interactive Music - s/t

Four song selection of tracks culled from Uwe Schmidt's mid 90s project, Interactive Music, a short-lived endeavour whose only footprint until now was an ambitiously conceived eight song collection on the Rather Interesting imprint Scmidt ran himself. Its initial 1995 release date timestamps this perfectly, a telling backdrop against which to understand Schmidt's type of experimental electronics which share some conceptual space with early Warp, Chain Reaction and Raster Noton. That original CD on Rather Interesting was too long to squeeze on to one (or perhaps even two) slabs of wax, so the four tracks selected here function as a neat overview of Schmidt's approach, either square-waved, Braindance-d steppers, or atmospheric minimal techno with dubby undercurrents. Schmidt is a man of a million aliases (Senor Coconut probably the one most will recall), a prolific producer hard to keep up with, and it's easy to see how a lone Interactive Music CD might get lost in the shuffle. Be grateful, then, that this one's been dredged up from the depths, as this is supreme stuff, texturally very detailed and rich, charmed with a very human touch, like the glitch music it seems to partly foretell. The sleeve notes on the original CD seem to presage AI, too, speaking of the interface between human intent and machine-led sequences left to their own devices: "the machines and their user have the same importance". Rather interesting, indeed. Crucially the concept never overshadows the outcome, music that moves as well as massaging the grey matter. Very serious looking artwork, too, giving the gravitas such music deserves.