[Cytrax]

The end of the nineties was a very interesting time in techno for America. While the focus had squarely been on Detroit for some years, people like Damon Wild, Freddy Fresh, Joey Beltram, Steve Stoll, Woody McBride and Frankie Bones were already highlighting other pockets of forward thinking synthetic electronics. Few though factored in San Francisco as a hotbed of techno activity; its name synonymous with tripped out house and the warehouse parties that made use of the cheap space in the Soma area. Two labels went a long way to dispel this generalization of the city though — Organised Noise and Cytrax. The latter was set up by Kit Clayton, Steve Tang and John Mendez. The label was host to a small like-minded group of friends — among them Sutekh, Markus Miller, Twerk and DJ Jasper. Their releases were undeniably influenced by the tracky style of Chicago’s Relief Records but with a nod to electro; they were also infused with a more experimental flavor, which Kit Clayton especially would go on to explore further via his output on Pole’s ~scape imprint among others.

Cytrax 06 is one of my favorites in the label’s relatively brief history and it all comes down to one track. The A side of DJ Jasper’s “Automation EP” features two angular cuts exuding that San Franciscan, skewed take on tracky techno. The first, with its heavily warped synths and atonal percussion, bears much in resemblance to Kit Clayton’s own style from around the same time, and its sound was revisited on later releases on Cytrax offshoot Delay, which was a harder branch of the parent label. The second track makes much use of rolling, oscillating synths over a bouncing two-stepping bass and kick ensemble, slowly distorting and coming across like a much cleaner, sedated version of Joey Beltram’s “Forklift.”

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The real magic is tucked away on the B side, the run out inscribed with “Septic Field Of Immoral Acts” going some way to describing the sound contained within the grooves. The percussion is delayed and becomes increasingly out of focus, somewhere between a twisted gasp of human breath and the squeal of a woodland animal. It sucks and pulls against the kicks as a slow winding monosynth starts highlighting the off beats, before long becoming a virtuoso solo, leading the rest of the sounds to dirtier and grittier depths. It’s several minutes before the hi-hats drop and more before the claps start, but as with all deceptively simple classics when they do the intensity is heightened tenfold. The formula written, DJ Jasper tweaks, filters, and further distorts every available part of the track before reining it all back in to where it started. Cytrax stayed active until 2003, with most of its alumni going on to scale greater heights, DJ Jasper re-emerging recently as Silent Servant. But the beginnings of this small San Franciscan imprint were exciting in that they captured perfectly the efforts of a small group of producers looking much further afield than the tribal and vocal house that was the order of the day in the pre-millennium Bay Area city.