B(if)tek - Sub-vocal Theme Park 2LP

I’m of the age where the name Kate Crawford is more readily associated in my mind with her work as a media theorist/artist studying the political economy of AI rather than as one half of the pioneering Oz electronic duo B(if)tek.

Leaning into retro-futuristic approach, listening to this reissue of their debut 1996 album feels like listening to a long-lost vision of the future of Oz. That’s not to say this sounds dated. Rather, it feels like rewatching The Matrix films all these years on. Perhaps it’s because this brand of electronic music eventually filtered into soundtracking the Matrix-esque futurism of TV shows that I grew up on. Perhaps it’s also the fact that retrofuturism appropriates aspects of the past in order to envision a future, whereas so much at the moment takes mashes together different aspects of past art/musical styles without saying anything about the now (let alone the future!).

Anyway, I’m getting away from myself… Great to see B(if)tek’s debut finally back in print and for the first time on vinyl, with a whole side of cuts unearthed from Nicole Skelty’s archives!
–Mitch