The frothy spirit of early AFX looms large and sweet over Kieran Warren’s contemporaneous archival cuts as Atonal – a must check for all fluffy ‘90s ambient admirers

Chasing up the 2020 release of Atonal’s music on the ‘Cithare’ EP, the eleven tracks of ‘Bridge’ hark from the same era, 1990-1994, and were likewise thwarted for a full release, with only a few of them seeing the light of day on a 1994 compilation via J.M. Adkins’ (Electro Music Union) Metatone label. What’s good sometimes eventually rises to the surface, though, as with ‘Bridge’, which finally ‘fesses its bounty of bubbling, bucolic treats, rangng from beautifully curdled Braindance melodies to very classy nods to AFX’s seminal ‘SAW 85-92’ in its highlights such as the warm and fuzzy ‘Codeine’, the crisp electro-breaks minimalism of ‘No Escape’, the snow crunch tread and wintry reverbs of ‘Edina H’ and the sincere homage of ‘Arkanoids.’

““I first met Kieran in about 1992 via a local newspaper advert for a bit of gear he was selling. I drove over to his flat to view the piece of equipment which I can’t remember now what it was. I ended up not buying it but we discovered we had a mutual interest in the same kinds of electronic music like Kraftwerk, Neu!, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire et al and had both bought the first Aphex album. I remember being impressed by the quality and size of his record collection which took up one whole wall of his flat. Also, he had some nice analog gear like an OSCar which also impressed me!

Anyway, we became firm friends and eventually he played me his own music and I thought it was superb (especially how he managed to get a resonant filter sweep out of an Ensoniq EPS16) and at the time Metatone was just starting up and I thought it would be great to put his music out on the label. Unfortunately for reasons I won’t go into here I managed to only put out 2 tracks on the compilation CD and Metatone folded soon after. So please enjoy this sublime album which has been lovingly put together by the guys at Cold Blow”