MEMORY-025_

Sinthetix / Rob F & Impulse Dubplates

As I was getting photos done for MEMORY-024, I took a few photos of the Sinthetix dubs I cut around 2000-2002, and it got my thinking about if there were there any stories about them. And there are…

The dubs cut at Scrunch, we (me, Rob and Josh) actually attended the session together in the summer of 2001. We were like “yes! We can drive two hours up to Philadelphia and get these cut in time for gigs.” We got about 45 minutes north of Baltimore on I-95, when my car’s radio started flickering, the car started slowing down, and it wasn’t handling right at all. As luck would have it, we were right at the ramp up to one of the two rest stops left in Maryland, and we were able to make it to the gas station there. It was a Saturday, a mechanic was around, and took quick look. Needed a new alternator, they were able to get one in town and do the work within an hour. Sucked that I was out like $300, but whatever, it worked out and we were able to continue on to Philly. The guys at Scrunch were waiting for us, we got a look around the studio, but then when it was time to actually cut, they had us leave the studio. So we wandered around the area they were based, got a late lunch at some sit down place. An hour or so later we collected our dubs, and hustled back down to DC. One of us must have had a gig that night too.

Some of the older dubs, I had cut at Aardvark in Denver, and Oscar da Grouch’s studio in Los Angeles. I think with Oscar, we were at the point where we didn’t want people to see our labels… but you can see on the sleeve the random stickers, and the handwriting that was directly influenced by Ed/UFO!. I remember having “Gateway” in time to take to WMC in 2001, but then the one line-up I was on, the room I was supposed to play got cut due to a venue change. Think it was a party Neil Schield organized around his artist agency roster. Still went to the party, probably heard “Gateway” played in 2 or 3 sets, and texting the guys about it. “Fallout” and “Hypochondriac” were probably two of my favorites, was super buzzed to have those, but in hindsight, I think I was such a “I am a DJ and I can’t play the same music in every set” nerd, that I didn’t play the tunes out as much as I could have. Also, “Chamber” with Mayhem, loved that tune, I wrote “funk break” on it because it had like the drum fill from Young MC’s “Bust A Move”.

I actually don’t remember getting to cut “Ultraviolet” or “Creature”, even though there here and with my handwriting on the labels, but I do remember when Kemal was in town for a gig. At that point, Rob and Josh were renting a house, no longer in their Sterling, VA apartment. Kemal had apparently been in town a whole day or two early, writing with them. “Creature” was the collab result, but “Ultraviolet” was like the result of the knowledge that was shared in the other session. Some of the later tracks I didn’t cut, but had on CD, as we were all switching to using CDJs for gigs. Some of the stuff I thought were Rob only tunes, or the titles were like digs at each other, stuff like “Loudmouth” and “Liar”. Can’t remember though.

Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/artist/9800-Sinthetix

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