Electric highway

Crystal Method do techno American style

by Matt Ashare

Look closely at any artist working in the brave new world of electronica and chances are you'll find "DJ" listed somewhere on his or her résumé. Everyone from Moby to the Chemical Brothers to Prodigy's Liam Howlett seems to have at some point stood in a dance club spinning discs. It is perhaps the biggest common denominator linking the increasingly diverse number of performers -- drum 'n' bass guys like L.T.J. Bukem, ambient atmospheric projects like the Orb, turntable wizards like DJ Shadow, and home-studio geeks like the Aphex Twin -- associated with electronica, and distinguishing them from the inhabitants of the larger pop universe. And it also explains why the new wave of techno caught on first in cities and countries with big rave and dance-club scenes, particularly in Europe and New York City, where DJs have long been candidates for a kind of celebrity statues that approaches rock stardom. It's no accident that Moby first made a name for himself as a DJ in England.

But with Columbia having struck a deal with the Philly-based DJ label Ovum, whose roster features DJs Josh Wink and King Britt, and Geffen's Outpost imprint now releasing material by LA's techno indie City of Angels (a label founded, coincidentally, by British DJ Justin King), American electronica is poised to make its presence felt. One of the most promising homegrown outfits is the City of Angels group Crystal Method, a pair of former DJs from Las Vegas who set up shop in a two-car garage studio in Glendale, California, a few years ago and scored a dance-club/rave-scene hit with the single "Now Is the Time" in '95. The duo, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland, just released Vegas (City of Angels/Outpost) this past Tuesday, a collection of 10 kinetic, breakbeat-driven, rock-inflected dance tracks that sets Crystal Method up as America's answer to England's Chemical Brothers. And they're one of the featured acts on the "Electric Highway" tour, which brings an international line-up of electronica artists and DJs to the World Trade Center for an eight-hour rave-style concert this Sunday (August 31).

"We don't write songs on acoustic guitar or piano," explains Jordan from Dallas on the eve of the third date on the tour, "but we like the sounds of classic-rock instruments and tube distortion. And since it's just too much of a hassle legally to sample from vinyl albums these days, we decided to make our own sounds. We use samplers heavily, but it's generally samples of stuff we've played ourselves. Scott plays guitar, I play a little bass, and we do a lot of pairing up of old analog synths with vintage guitar gear."

The results, however, are quite a bit more space-age sleek than all that vintage equipment might suggest. With its siren-like synth swoops and a spoken-word sample of what sounds like an older scientist-type man reciting the line "Another world/Another time/In an age of wonder," the slow-building first few minutes of "Trip like I Do," the disc's opener, seems to suggest outer-space journeys rather than druggy inner-space explorations -- until a hard-hitting series of breakbeats erupts and a woman's breathy pre-orgasmic voice surfaces to repeat the line "Oh my God, this is the best." The next tune, "Busy Time," which was already a dance-floor hit earlier this year and appeared on the MTV Amp (Astralwerks) compilation, is all pulsing bass, squiggling synths, and big-beat groove. Elsewhere, the alluring voice of NYC visual artist Trixie (Trudy Reese) inhabits the futuristic disco tease of "Comin' Back," and syncopated synth tones echo ominously against a backdrop of raygun video-game sounds and trip-hoppy drums on the instrumental standout "Keep Hope Alive," which brings to mind U2's "Discotheque," only with more of a savvy, streamlined dub sensibility.

"It's difficult to compare what we do to a rock act or to a DJ," admits Jordan. "We still have turntables in our studio, but it's definitely an instrument we use to make records with rather than a instrument that we use to DJ with. When we started playing live, the people who were coming to the raves were kids who, if you asked them who their favorite artists were, would name DJs who didn't have any records of their own out. And if we told them we were playing, they'd say, `Oh great, what time do you spin.' "

Indeed, what Crystal Method do came out of the DJ rave scene and has now adapted to the rules of the rock world (i.e., writing songs hooks, performing live, releasing full-length CDs instead of just singles). But Jordan and Kirkland most closely resemble a dance-music/hip-hop producer team like the Dust Brothers, stepping out from behind the mixing board to be the stars of their own show.

"When I started doing this music I had no idea it would become a band," Jordan recalls. "I was an engineer/producer thinking, `Yeah, I won't have to be on stage this way.' Then one day it hit me: `I guess I'm in a band now.' "

Matt Ashare can be reached at mashare[a]phx.com.