Andy Stokes - Dance Floor Confusion

Hear The Track Here

Aceeed!! Damn, those were the days huh? Like many of us, I went through a dance phase, going out almost every night and dancing my socks off - usually more off my face than on it if you get my drift. I was getting a little long in the tooth when the rave scene exploded although I did, generally, get into the musical side of it. However, that was a long time ago now and music has moved on a pace, on the internet more than anywhere else. It was on the net - on another site long ago - that I really started to experience what came to be known as electronic trance and techno and, as I've said many times - that experience ruined me for this music forever. So much so that tehno tracks have to be REALLY justifiable for me to get behind it.

Rebirth and its clones has a lot to answer for IMHO, not least for the ease of which it can seduce the unwary into believing they can actually make music worth listening to. Good techno has to start with a) a great squelchy bassline and; b) a counterpoint sequence that doesn't give up EVER. Both of those elements are present in Dance Floor Confusion and they are about as relentless as any I've heard so it's a given that you would have to like analog sounds (beeps, buzzes and whirrs to you) to really get where this track is. Obviously this is a track played best on a BIG system, and one of the failings I couldn't get over was the absence of the really low bottom end - for me a prerequisite for the genre. Yep, I know it's a technical thingie but I have bass bins that need regular workouts and this just didn't cut it for them. There is a general overall thinness of sound overall but it's particularly noticeable down in the old boots section.

Like all of its breed, Dance Floor Confusion is repetitious to a fault and sometimes that can be a bad thing. Nonetheless, Andy piles change after change on top of the excellent intro - which is basically the whole track - until your head is spinning faster than your head is nodding. All a bit disorienting, but in the best way imaginable. As I say, I don't really have a lot of time for this kind of material but I can recognise when someone has put a lot of thought and effort to make the track more than just a cute and/or simplistic electronica workout. If you like music that just builds and builds and builds, all in the time honoured techno way, then Andy Stokes may well be the guy to be checking out.

Recommended techno.