303 Nation - Barcelona
There is an interview from the earliest days of the Planet Core label, where the ones involved state that, when a new artist wants to work with them, they take their material to the studio and enhance it, to push it really into the "Phuture" sound that this very label is known for - with the exception of the tracks by the 303 Nation, because they were able to reach this level on their own.
This should be enough to show that the 303 Nation was a singular project, unique, peculiar, stellar, not just within the wider cosmos of the Planet Core Production, but the whole of Techno, and the whole world of music.
303 Nation - Seis
You don't yet believe it? Let me take you to a single track, simply called "seis" on a release simply called "Six Tracker" EP, released on the label of Dance Ecstasy 2001.
I don't exaggerate; this track is simply made up of one filtered bassdrum, and one filtered acid line out of Roland's 303. There is no percussion. There are no vocals. There is no FX. No synths, no choirs, no samples, no breakbeats, no hoovers... both variants of "bass" pulse on in nothingness. For several minutes... (or forever?)
303 Nation - Damnation
And it's one of the greatest tracks I ever heard at the same time.
Any artists who manage to do this, who "pull off this trick" - to get the maximum out of the most minimal - are deserving whatever award is available.
This is one of the things, maybe even one of the kinks of the 303 Nation. Minimalist in design.
Drum, bassline, percussion, sparse and spacey synths, go!
Yet these minimum means create massive mayhem.
303 Nation - Dos
You will have a hard time finding any more elements, or even samples. There is something that resembles the sound of piledriver in the distance on "dos" amongst the tracks of the aforementioned six tracker EP... yes... but what else, really?
That's the line of sound they were known for, and it's brilliant.
100% Acidiferous - Worldisorder
But... if you go beyond these tracks, centered on the Dance Ecstasy label, there is something else, there is more.
Donning the "100% Acidiferous" alias they deliver some straight Acidcore blows to rot your teeth.
It's still the 303 Nation "mode" - mostly bass, bleeps and drums - but this time distorted, fried, crispy, and hard as fudge. Nu Horizons, indeed.
100% Acidiferous - Nu Horizons
So you see... these were some of the most versatile and mysterious producers of the 90s Techno scene.
It's hard to trace them or their productions post-1994, and post-PCP. A shame that such creative minds had not more output on vinyl or other media.
But at least we still have these tracks to listen to. And bath in the acid mystery of the 303 nation.
303 Nation - Live Act June 1992
Note: No AI was used in writing these tracks.