Beyond Gravity

Maybe because they were casually revolutionising music week by week with their jungle records at the time, 4Hero‘s early 90s techno output is rarely given the credit it deserves. But somehow among all their other activities they found time to run the outstanding Reflective label, collecting a stellar array of international names on their Deeper Shade of Techno compilations. And their Nu Era alias produced several EPs and this album, which is easily the equal of any release of the time by Luke Slater, Mark Broom or any other producer you care to put it up against. It’s unashamedly indebted to Detroit, but it takes the basic principles of machine funk and sci-fi dreaming as challenges to go as far as possible with sound and imagination, and sounds like a trans galactic voyage to this day. 4Hero’s Marc Mac would take the alias for his own in the 2010s and run with it, making a slew of records that, astoundingly, sound equally fresh, revitalising techno with broken beat, soul and p-funk essences.