I met Marco Passarani way back in 1992 when I was on tour with Underground Resistance.

Our gig had been cancelled due to the promoters not securing the equipment specified on our rider. As a result, Mike Banks got us 100% of our fee. Vacation time in Rome! It was me, Mike, Derwin Hall, and Eddie Fowlkes on the loose.

Some local guys got us a small DJ gig at a place called the Atom Club instead. It was kind of a pub, not a full-on thing as I recall. Just fun. Myself and Eddie Fowlkes played records. Young Marco came up to me and gave me a high-quality DAT of material, asking me to have a listen. A lot of trust and naivete on his part because people were bootlegging and ripping off tracks left and right in those days.

Anyway, I was just getting Generator off the ground. All the tracks thus far had been made by myself and my old studio partner, and I was open to new artists.

I got back home to Detroit and was blown away by Marco and Matteo's music. Matteo Monteduro (whom I've never met) was kind of the silent partner in those tracks. From what I heard, he'd been in the Italian military at the time and made music as a hobby. This stuff was fully produced in a "real" studio and sounding super-professional compared to what we had been putting together. I got with Marco via phone and told him I liked his stuff, faxed him a heads of agreement, and off we went. Marco and Matteo ended up doing a few things on Generator from that point on, our first international signings.

"JDs Message" is a real frantic acid workout. It is of a piece with those old ACV records of the time; Lory D and the like, whom we met in Rome.

"Dreaming Detroit" is what it says on the label. A big, high-speed rave track with a big organ sample and vocal riffs, smoothed out by Detroit-inspired strings (a good old Roland D-50 to my ears).

"Pure Acceleration" is crazy to this day with it's sci-fi sounds, tempo shifts, stops and starts, and that wild Billy Squier sample. We weren't doing anything like this at K-Lab (Detroit).

I left the interlude track "Untitled" off the vinyl release 28 years ago because the running time would have been too long. Here it is, unheard by anyone but me, Marco and Matteo since 1992.

"Urban Reprise" I loved, and still do. So melodic and moody. The keyboard lines are almost vocals. I rarely listen to techno outside of work, but I used to listen to this in my car all the time. I wish I could get this kind of stuff placed in films.

Passarani of course has gone on to be quite well-known, both for his solo works and his Tiger and Woods project. He also did a Red Bull workshop with my old UR boss Mike Banks, so it's all come full circle.

Thanks to Marco for allowing me to remaster and re-release this project digitally, just in time for the end of the world.

Alan Oldham,
Berlin, 2020