flashback #1: Sheep Records

29-01-2026

NOTE: I've only opted to cover up to the year 1999 here, because there's only so much I was able to find.

1996

Raoul Delgardo - Distant Avenues (SH101)
Raoul Delgardo - Full Automation (SH202)

Raoul Delgardo is the alias of Antony Soares Vieira, a British producer and label manager. Distant Avenues has three untitled cuts all of which in the low 140s. Banging, one bass synth, a drum machine. A basic formula, very practical tracks. No slight against them intended, they're all well suited to their job. Full Automation is much the same. My favourites on each are the shortest on Distant Avenues and everything on Full Automation.

Ann Gore - Infatuation (SH303)
A0 Betty
B1 Deadrie
B2 Beatrice

The only music Discogs credits to Ann Gore are this EP and 1998's Sunblind (SH12). The three cuts all have women's names here, perhaps given the name of the EP, they might have been people Ann had crushes on? Betty kicks things off with a vibe which is both delightfully trippy and hard hitting. Constant bubbling/chirping with an insistent one chord jamming. Sometimes some additional acid woven in for good measure. Deadrie continues the insistent one chord vamp with the focus here being a good constant energy good for transitions up or down in energy. The variations such that they exist are in the drum programming and some subtle filtering of the chord. Beatrice is another trippy one with some nicely matched drum and riffing with regards to both pacing and rhythm. The opening and closing numbers are the definite highlights of the 12" and this EP is already more creative and distinctive than the two before it in the catalogue.

David Paxton - Careless Love (SH404)
A0 Lockdown
B1 Set It Off
B2 Across Your Face

David Paxton likewise seems to only have credits on this label. Lockdown is a solid state two-chord rocker chugger, static but useful. Set It Off is cut from the same cloth but more variance in energy can be found and the hook seems to be from a somewhat more timbrally interesting source. Across Your Face does indeed have some motion and sense of space the title suggests, not the most interesting thing on here but not a bad cut to throw in a set.

Eddy Masvoodler:
Deposit (SH505)
Successive Change (SH606)

Deposit (SH505)
A1 Remit
A2 Tap
B1 Pass On
B2 Wind Up

Eddy Masvoodler is the alias of the ever-busy Mick Harris. Though he may be best known to some as a former drummer of Napalm Death, he is someone who has had his fingers in many electronic pies over the years, including dnb as Quoit, making trip hop and illbient and other bass spectrum things as Scorn, collaborating with John Zorn in PainKiller, Harris has several techno projects including Monrella which recorded largely for Regis' ZET label. "Remit" feels like a harder edged take on something Millsian and wouldn't be out of place either in a set by the Wizard or one of his peers in his native Birmingham. "Tap" has some fun with delay but doesn't feel entiiiiirely dub and definitely sticks out more than "Remit" which seems cheekily named ("Does this fit the remit of some proper techno for ya?") "Pass On" is an incredible tool with some incredible use of the stereo field with psychedelic bubbles dizzyingly rapidly panning and squeaking while the percussion mostly changes up except for the insistent kick. "Wind Up" is similarly dizzying with some lovely call and answer happening between the drums and the synth here. All in all a very neat EP worth checking out and has interesting things to offer anyone on the dancefloor, behind the decks, or ideas for a producer.

Successive Change (SH606)
A0 Course
B1 Raketactics
B2 Pluck

Pluck is a similarly strange but interesting track to some of those found on Deposit (SH505). I wasn't able to find the rest to listen to.

1997

Raoul Delgardo - Hanging Brains (SH707)
A0 Metal Monster
B1 Big Bird
B2 Dave's Apartment

Metal Monster is yet another example of the very cool, psychedelic-meets-industrial techno this label showcases. An absolute mindmelter. Big Bird is also kinda weird but a lot easier to use without blending as is Dave's Apartment. This whole EP is a lot more distinctive than Delgardo's first two, but all three so far have shown themselves to be worth a listen and spin.

Naohisa Furusawa - Zoo-Music (SH808)

Besides this four track of 4 untitled pieces, Naohisa Furusawa recorded a fourtracker for Italy's Chicago Style, Robert Armani's private imprint of ACV for friends of his like Traxmen, an EP for the Swedish label Loop, one for the UK's corner of Planet Rhythm Records as DAT Outputs, and contributed a track called E++ for Tresor's fifth selftitled compilation, Tresor 5, (where it sat between the more feted classics Joey Beltram's Ball Park and Blue Arsed Fly's Bucket). The first piece drops you right into a frenzied hailstorm of percussive mayhem with some medium bleeping vamps before some lovely portamentoed smears come in around 1:14, it's a claustrophobic but unmissable seven minutes. Zoo-Music 2 is less distinctive. Zoo-Music 3 has more sounds like those smears from the first piece though they're less decorative here. There is an urgency here but not an entirely ominous feeling. Zoo-Music 4 is constantly tense and one of those cuts which feels like it's waiting for something that never comes, so it might suit mixing into something or using as a closer to tease your listeners.

Eddy Masvoodler - Ping (SH909)
A0 Stabilize
B1 Click
B2 Grow


Stabilize is indeed pretty stable but periodically lets things slip just a little for punctuation. Click is a lot more minimal in its synth use, but achieves some of that just-perfect skittery staccato synth which when executed just right (like here) can be such a trademark of techno. Though I wonder if the drums are maybe drowning it out a little more than I'd like. Grow is also staccato and skittery in a lovely way but doesn't feel as unbalanced with the volume levels. Mick Harris once more demonstrates his understanding of techno, and frankly, there's something Masvoodler has which a certain amount of the Birmingham techno scene isn't always known for, perhaps.

Raoul Delgardo - Location 1-3 (SH1010)
A0 Location 1
B1 Location 2
B2 Location 3

Onwards, to the three locations. Location 1 feels like a nine minute trip through a blizzard or sandstorm, though much of the initial distorted synth is gone by the five-and-a-half-minute mark after which point the sonority of the sampled percussion becomes the harmonic focus. Location 2 is a trudge through some thick mud, a bit rough but still thumping away, some cool layering of synth and enjoyable percussive variance. But you feel gravity slightly lessening on the closing number, much looser, and loopier, but still wellsuited to building some energy.

1998

David Paxton - Despair in the Kitchen (SH11)

These tracks were recorded in Manchester, says Discogs. A1 has a very percussive synth part which occasionally has variation in its sustain and decay and is often filtered more or less. A2 is similar timbrally but feels almost xylophonic in its melodic part but a very interesting burblyness of very fast pulsing and delay in it which makes it an additional layer of percussion at the same time as being the harmonic focal point here. The B-side's lone track's synth is much shorter decay but there is also a certain persistent subtle but industrial sound, a sort of soft but noisy blip which is not used as much for percussion as an additional layer of riffing.

Ann Gore - Sunblind (SH12)
A0 Sunblind
B1 Untitled
B2 Untitled

The title cut here is doing stuff with the percussion loops which is a little unusual and original with some of how it smears into a one note vamp. B1 is very of its time and isn't baaad but it's less distinctive than the next cut. B2 has a rubbery topline which forms a lovely counterpart to the insistent rolling in the lower end of the frequency range, and the drum programming has some fun with the things it's doing with the snare drums which isn't just your 2s-and-4s. It feels like the highlight.

>> flashback #2: Blueline Music
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