Cybernation – The Dark Plane (Full Album)

Cybernation was my first album, I was 21 when I made it, it was just an experiment to see if I could produce something that sounded halfway decent out of my home studio at the time. This was 1987 and we were just at the beginnings of the ‘home studio’ trend and so the gear was nowhere near what is available now, but I had an Akai MG1214 recording console which was pretty much the Cadillac of home ‘all in one’ studios at that time, it was 12 tracks, analog half inch tape in a cassette based format that was made exclusively for that machine. I also had an Akai sampler, some out board effects, guitars, a bass, a Korg DW8000 synthesizer and a sequencer.

I recorded the album playing all the instruments myself in a period of about a month and then it was mixed and mastered to 2 track analog tape at Century 21 studios here in Winnipeg in one 4 hour mixing session. I was just teaching myself to write songs, as well as, how to sing at the time. It sounds pretty dated, but that is part of it’s charm, I was really into Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream and Brian Eno at the time and I think that influence definitely shows. All in all, 30 years later, I’m glad I made it and I do ponder the idea of revisiting the old multitracks and reworking the album to make it sound like what I had in my head but was unable to achieve at the time with my limited resources and experience."

- James Rewucki

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Grandmaster Melle Mel – Jesse (Unreleased Acetate Version 1984) Old School Electo Rap

Now that's a real Hip Hop Masterpiece, this Acetate features an unreleased alternative Version of the Old School Electro Rap Classic "Jesse" by Hip Hop Legend "Grandmaster Melle Mel". I am the lucky owner of both Acetates, the one with the official Version which was mastered on the 13th of January 1984 and the one with the unreleased Mix which was mastered the 08th of February 1984. Aside the different arrangement it seems that they re-recorded the Rap for this Version, it definitely sounds different ! Another difference to the official Version is the refrain, on the official Mix "Mel" says "Hypocrites and uncle Toms are talking Trash" and the crowd answers "Let's talk about Jesse" ! On this Acetate Version it's the Vocoder answering "Mel'" hook ! Strange enough that on the German Pressing (Teldec) of "Jesse" they used a similar Refrain! For me it looks like they have recorded 2 different Versions and had to decide which one to use for the Official Release!
I have recorded a long 5 Min. + Sound Sample ...so check it out, this one's super dope! Peace

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