The Connection Machine

... in the form of text spoken by then-state-of-the-art speech synthesis software! This track unofficially was dubbed The U-TRAX Mainframe and can be listened to here:

From the original 1994 press release:

Indeed, the people behind this project, Natasja Hagemeier and Jeroen Brandjes, make beautiful music but are not really gifted when it comes to making up names. So they started as Syndrome, at the time they made their first stuff that was released on our DROME Tapes cassettelabel. Then they thought it would be a good idea to come up with some more alter-egos: Bitch&Bites and The Connection Machine. And of course, all these names needed an overall name: The Utroid Machine Missions. One name for every mood or, if you wish, for every kind of delivery-pizza.

Anyway, quite a few things happened with Natasja & Jeroen since they released their first tracks on the DROME Tapes and on their album on U-TRAX (on which they used all these names). And may be all these experiences made them decide to use only one name in the future: The Connection Machine.

So what happended? They appear on Carl Craig's Planet E compilation-CD (Elements of and Experiments with Sound) and released a 12" very recently on this label. All this led to a small-sized hype in the Dutch incrowd techno-scene, a fuzz that for the greater part completely passed by Jeroen and Natasja's attention.

And now they release a new 12" on U-TRAX, again with some older material. 8 Minutes is the kind of track that was recorded quite spontaneously. There's only one take of this 13 minutes-long track, on a rather bad cassette. But AWAX-member TJ Tape TV's (known from a.o. Sp@sms) high tech equipment eased the pain a little. And wouldn't it be a shame not to release this great supa-danceable techno-stomper!
On the b-side there's a 'mellow' track, also from some years ago, called Echoes from Tau Ceti. The sax-based track originated more or less as a joke, but it turned out to be quite an interesting mixture between serious techno and mellow club-music. And of course, the result is as deep as we are used from Natasja and Jeroen.
Space Cadets on Leave is my personal favorite. I really don't know what I like so much about it. May be because the song never really starts, or may be it's the 'hot-summer-on-a-distant-planet'-feel, or is it just the space-effects? See for yourself, may be you'll hate it, but I don't give a damn.

Original vinyl release: April 1995