One A.D. (Volume One Ambient Dub)

Techno mutates and renames itself constantly, and with recent compilations, the music has regrouped around cryptic rubrics — trance and dub. The former, best exemplified by The Secret Life of Trance, reconciles hardcore techno's manic pop desire with the avant experimentation of ambient music. One A.D. livens up ambient's New Age dither with tongue-in-cheek grooves. Like their trance counterparts, One A.D.'s DJ-producers are Brian Eno fans who know that techno's wacky uncle was just as much a songwriter as a sonic explorer. One A.D.: B+

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