The Advent has long been one of techno's highest regarded boundary-pushers and is responsible for some of the greatest records in the genre. But, before he became the legend we know today, he had another alias called G Flame, which sat somewhere between house and techno. Real tech house, if you will. Now, almost 30 years later, he's released an album of tracks recorded through the 90s titled I Want You. I use the term real tech house because, as you'll find below, the tracks drift between the two in a way that modern tech house is clearly lacking. Below, G Flame takes us through this historic release, highlighting the creative process behind its creation for another installment of our Director's Cut series.
How to listen: There are a couple of ways to proceed. First, you can listen to the whole album, which you will find below, and then read the notes. Or, read the notes as you listen to each track. This will completely change your perspective on the whole release itself and bring you closer to the artist and their work.
Words by G Flame
Album title track….
This is more of a stripped-down type house NYC groove, but me using Female vocals for the 1st time, as I usually preferred working with Male vocals in my style of house.. Only a few tracks I dabbled with using female Vocals.. I liked the lazy Baseline on this (MP2000) keeping the track simple was key & finding a place in the track & mix for each sound.. over produced house music is Toilet.. I also don’t mind the dirt in the mix, it’s essential.. with modern-day house (Tech house) music is way to polished, it loses so much of what house music is really about.. Dirty sounding raw House. Pioneers who made this creation on their 4 tracks & bedroom studio mixes. were the best…
Free Town
Most of this track was all produced on the infamous Roger Linn Master creation “AKAI MPC2000” for that real House vibe, it’s the go-to machine for me when it comes to house.. ALWAYS.. Because without a computer & fiddling with your Mickey Mouse & too many clicks away from an uninspiring session. you get down to the nitty-gritty with the MPC, and you can add more of a human feel to your vibe, which is what “HOUSE IS ALL ABOUT FOR ME”. It’s about the groove & movement of sounds. This has a nice jazzy feel to it, with James Brown type vocal add libs ooh's & aah's, proper NYC style House.. for me The Big Apple had the best House sound..
Broken (Original Mix)
This was like most of my Creations a groove that evolved.. Sometimes when you’re in the lab & you get into your flow things just happen & pop out of the Session.. it was also a time when no genre was identified so you had more freedom to explore ideas without RESTRICTION & Where to place your music.. It was all about groove to make you move…
Thoughts
My main influence was 100% NYC HOUSE.. artists like Mood II Swing, Todd Terry, MAW, labels like Nu Groove, Strictly Rhythm, Illegal, Shelter Records.. etc etc. They had the very best quality in house music at this time, & I was very driven by that whole wall of sound they created. It had the Funk, soul, Latin flavours, & Afro vibe, NYC was a mind-blowing place to be (Later I had the honour to perform at TWILO, LIMELIGHT, Webster Hall) I used to make these tracks & imagine myself @ Clubs like… Zanzibar (Tony Humphries), Loft (David Mancuso) and would visualise it & sometimes that was my thought process to making this style of music.. I had to place my mind there in order to make it & feel it.. “Can you feel it” YES.. 100%
UP ALL NIGHT
As most of the tracks on this album 'I Want You' are from my Late 80’s, early 90’s & Mid 90’s period, one lesson that I learned from many great sound engineers was recorded everything, doesn’t matter good or bad, a great piece of advice that I do not mind sharing (In today’s Computer Age with total recall, easy peasy) I did so many recordings/tracks (Lost Count) and also many variations of ideas, before the Mixing board would be reset for the next session/track, so you really had to get as much out of your mixes so you could pick & choose the best parts later & Reel to Reel ‘Tape edit’.. I also just signed my 1st record deal to ‘London Records/Internal records’ as my Techno Alias. “The Advent” & some of these tracks came out of those sessions.. This track “Up All NIGHT” was another more house version of a track called “Mononix”
Lynn Grooves
Duty Called again on Mr. Roger Linn (dude is a genius) but …This time I went way back, back into time.. when he unleashed his 1st Linn9000, Still for me one of the best work stations ever, even surpasses the MPC series.. I 1st saw this beast in operation while working as a sound engineer for “Loose Ends” & watching Legend Carl Mcintosh create amazing grooves in this machine in a matter of minutes.. so almost a decade later (1996), I purchased my very own, this track, it's all about Dirty Drums & Grooves, keeping it very very simple. but the sound for me just jumps out of this track, every drum sound & sound sample is all from the Linn 9000.. Maybe AKAI/Behringer will make a nice affordable clone version???? lol…
Stringer
More mid 90’s, but this track (MPC2000) is me experimenting with more techno BPM’s & using house music baselines & grooves,…. As house was my 1st love of music & Techno 2nd.. I wanted to fuse these two styles of music together, the best part about making music in this time (90’s) period, is that you could be unique in what you were producing, as no one even touched on these ideas, so your music & vibe could easily stand out.. it was an evolving time in our scene, so many styles & studio techniques were being scratched for the 1st time and the term HOUSE TECHNO as I named it, was in the far distant future of today’s Tech House ..
Turnmills
This is the most modern track Made in 2016 period, so a newer sounding track.. the title is from a famous venue “Turnmills” near Kings Cross area.. actually round the corner from Fabric & 5 mins away from my early “Clock Studio” Days, was a great place & time to be in, heard so many great DJ’s at this venue.. was below street level, so you had to go down a few levels & there it was a great sounding venue, maybe over 1000 Capacity.. but I had so SO many great moments of artistic ideas.. like you hear something and you just want to hit the studio ASAP to lay down the idea that keeps going round & round in your Brain.. Luckily the “Wall Studio” was close by Turnmills, but this track was produced much, much later when Turnmills sadly closed down.. but every time I hit the spot with certain tracks, my mind wanders back to that period..
6.a.m.
This Track really goes back to my very early “early” (18 Years Old) beginning of producing music, late 80’s to be exact.
When I was just discovering my sound & the early years of the “Ever growing London underground house scene”. NOTE: before techno even made an appearance.. House music was (Clubbing London) dance music for a good few years before other genres started to surface, this TRACK was heavily influenced by my weekends & exploring club life, like Heaven, Wag Club, Clink Street, Jungle & many others, I was studying as a sound engineer at “Clock studios” which later became “The Wall Studio” The owner was John Payne, the singer from Rock Group “ASIA”. I had my own set of studio keys, and as the studio was located smack in Central London (Barbican) most weekends after clubbing, I would find myself back at the studio, until the early hours jamming at 6.A.M, this track was also was from my early K.C.C. (UK underground House collective) period, which was an amazing progression for me in late 80’s London…
