A Sampler from SSR

The Belgian sublabel of Crammed Discs reissues its rare electronic music of the '80s and '90s

This week, Brussels-based Crammed Discs begins what it is describing as a multi-year reissue project devoted to its quirky and occasionally visionary SSR imprint. The first digital EP, Rare Early SSR Electronica 1989-1991, contains five singles from the wild moment when DJ-driven styles from the US — Detroit techno — began to captivate European producers and rock artists.

The SSR artists are sometimes credited with helping to develop subgenres that flourished during an early creative peak of electronic dance music — the EP features the lo-fi electro of Bleep (“A Byte of AMC”) and the strangely assymetrical industrial breakbeat of The Gruesome Twosome (“Hallucination Generation”). These tracks are hardly textbook examples of those styles, however: They’re unruly works of sample pastiche that trade the streamlined order of Kraftwerk for the irreverence (and dissonance) of punk.

SSR didn’t have a sound, but it did have a distinct anything-goes aesthetic. The roots of it are on display here: The best-known track on the new EP is probably "Drop That Ghetto Blaster" by Mr Big Mouse. It’s an “answer” track to the S’Express acid-house hit “Theme from S’Express” that situates vocals by performance artist Karen Finley, sampled from her Tales of Taboo EP, within a mosaic of cleverly juxtaposed oddities of sampled and manipulated sound. The artists doing the mangling were Crammed founder Marc Hollander and producer Vincert Kenis, whose credits include the visionary Congotronics series.

These early experiments established a kind of creative ethos that prevailed at SSR for a long time, across over 60 releases. Its artists might have been fluent in the architecture of techno and house — but they also wove in rhythms from Africa, vocals from the Middle East, free improvisation from Europe and the placid textures of ambient music. Within the SSR catalog are provocative albums by Carl Craig, 4hero, DJ Morpheus, Tek 9, DJ Spinna and others. Here’s hoping that some of these long out-of-print titles are reissued in complete form, not just spotlighted with a track or two on future compilations.

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