New tracks from Tactical Airspace, XOR Gate, Daugther Produkt, Drexciya research and more

This incredible artwork is by Abdul Haqq and ties in with the exclusive Dopplereffekt music which was made available as one of the perks for The Book of Drexciya Vol. 2. Preview edit of 'Ascension of Genetic Intelligence' here. 

There is a brand new Daughter Produkt track, 'Anisotropy', hidden away on this new ambient compilation from !K7 Records. You can see it in this YouTube video. There are also 13 tracks up on the DP Bandcamp page.

In case you missed it, at the end of October 2020 'Boolean Logic Gate' by Heinrich Mueller's XOR Gate was included in a 5 12" box set from Berlin Atonal. It can also be downloaded as a single track from this link.

Tactical Airspace now have a YouTube channel and have posted their 'Technical Demonstrator' video. There is something so sad and melancholic about this melody. 'Tactical Airspace is not endorsed by nor affiliated with the United States Department of Defence.'

The first new music from Aquanauts in 15 years is now available. You will find it on D.J. Di'jital's Bandcamp. The other members of the collective were last listed as Tyree Stinson (James' younger brother), DJ Skurge (UR) and Bileebob (UR). Good to have them back! More info in comments.

'U R GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN - THE X-PERIMENTS WILL CONTINUE AT ALL COSTS EVEN DEATH. YOUR WORLD WILL LIVE ON THRU US. TYREE STINSON' - Aquanauts run-out groove message from 2003

This is a real treat for you from Issue Project Room. The first 11 minutes of this 47 min long video is brand new music from Dopplereffekt, illustrated by images from The Book of Drexciya. Then there is a fascinating interview between DeForrest Brown Jr. and Abdul Qadim Haqq of The Drexciyan Empire.

Following on from a post I made on DRL FB page, Record Makers made a very welcome statement in the comments: 'For your information, we are working on re-pressing both "Wireless Internet" and "Inertial Frame" on vinyl in 2021.' That is great news for new fans as prices for Wireless Internet are currently around 100eu and Inertial Frame is not far behind. You can download and even still buy a CD copy from a Record Makers main website. 

The new 12" EP, Hidden Forces, of rarities by Ultradyne is out now and available from online retailers. It includes a new mix of 'Dr. Blowfin's Experiment', 'Crossphaze' by X-Ternal Pulse and more. Samples and purchase here.

The below is some DRL research I've been doing...

Drexciya's The Journey Home EP (1995) on Warp Records was their fifth EP and release. Up to then (barring their debut, Deep Sea Dweller) there was always 'Drexciya 2', 'Drexciya 3', 'Drexciya 4' somewhere clearly on the label artwork. It's missing on The Journey Home until you look at the label's small print, '(Epsilon Aquazone We're Going Deep)'.

Epsilon is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet and can be used to donate the 5th in a series of items, eg. in astronomy the fifth star in a constellation would be written as ‘Epsilon Carinae’. 

'Aquazone' was a word Drexciya had used before (Unknown Aquazone) and actually created themselves or made their own at least. It could be seen as referring to a deep undiscovered and uncharted region of the sea ('We're Going Deep').

In 1995 there were still only four recognised oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic) so maybe they were thinking of a fifth ocean/aquazone? Not until 2002 was the Southern Ocean officially accepted as being the fifth ocean. 

'He (Gerald Donald) said that he and James Stinson used to imagine themselves in a submersible descending to the bottom of the ocean, the absolute depths of the Mariana Trenches – absolute silence, blackness, crushing pressure, the creaking of metal. He said that they would think themselves into this space and then they would start making music from this perspective of insulation and isolation. '

- Afrofuturism, Afro-Pessimism and the Politics of Abstraction: A Conversation with Kodwo Eshun by Christoph Cox (2014). Full text and more Drexciya and GD references at this link.

This very revealing quote appears in Marcus Barnes' new piece on Drexciya in Mixmag. The Mariana Trenches are located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is the deepest part of the world’s oceans at 10,994 metres. It is a mark of crescent shape in the Earth's crust, which is considered 2,550 km long and 69 km wide.

Lastly, after 15 years of doing DRL it never ceases to amaze me how new and unexpected information continues to come my way. One of my readers recently brought LEGO's 'Aquazone' theme to my attention. They had a series of these underwater themed kits from 1995-1998. There was even a Neptune's Discovery Lab and the characters were Aquanauts. This phrase was first used by Drexciya the previous year on 1994's The Unknown Aquazone double pack. While this could well be just a coincidence, I like to imagine one of their designers or marketers was a Drexciya fan! 

What makes this even more strange is that 'Lego blocks' are the subject of Glass Domain's 'Interlock' from 1991. The lyrics sound like they come from an actual Lego catalogue. Perhaps James Stinson and Gerald Donald had been big Lego fans as children? More details about LEGO's Aquazone here.