Throughout the nineties, a man by the name of, or rather A Guy Called Gerald, made a great deal of cutting edge electronic music, known throughout various scenes from techno to jungle, while influencing and being a peer of the wave of Bristolian down-tempo beats that brought forth people like Tricky and Massive Attack to the world.
To Gerald’s credit, you could never really pin him down to any one scene per se, but with Proto Acid/The Berlin Sessions, it seems you can. It’s Proto Acid – he said so, fool.

In so far as it’s been a little time since Acid house was the name on all the kids’ lips, I’ll let Gerald do the talking. ‘In the beginning Jack had a groove. That groove was fucked so many times during the nineties that some of us had to leave and go and hide in the Jungle till it was safe to come out again. Proto Acid is a weave of interlaced analogue sounds driven by digital sequencers. I dedicate this to all the original techno and acid house producers who had the vision and are still the hearts and soul of this music’. Jesus, he’s been hiding in the jungle! I had no idea it was so drastic. The LP then, is firmly in the techno realm, as he describes it ‘ethereal material’ ‘tried and tested’ in Berlin clubs (well you couldn’t have done it in Canberra) on human subjects. It’s not really overly ethereal, but it’s good value for any discerning music collector, like myself of course, who’s eager to fill in the gaps, while being also willing to have a Guy like Gerald teach them. As for the Acid, I’m not saying anything about alluding to drug references, but track names like Marching Powder, The Strip, Feel The Heat and Skitzoid have to leave you wondering.