I’ll never forget hearing this track on a tape at school aged 13 or 14. Nick Canning played it to me, swearing blind that his uncle made it and that it was called ‘Flight Through Metamorphic Rocks’. I loved it and only later found out who really made it and the actual title (the track before is called ‘Cloudburst Flight’).
Funnily enough, the tape started the track at about the same place, the first half of the song is pretty average but then it breaks down and comes back with this pre-techno monster, not bad for 1979.
Of course, come the early 90’s and the resurgence of ambient music I was hoovering up LPs like the classic ‘Phaedra’, ‘Zeit’ and ‘Stratosfear’, even ‘Electronic Meditation’ but I lost track around the mid 80’s soundtrack period. And then there was this album where the truth was revealed… RIP Edgar
Oh, ‘Thief’ is really good. It’s condensed Mann, it’s all all right there fully-formed at the start of his career.
The UK Blu-ray coming out in a couple of weeks is excellent. The TD soundtrack alternately helps and hinders it [I’m not a big fan of their soundtracks, they’re often a bit weedy], but the use of “…Metamorphic Rocks” is really excellent.
Fair enough on Holmes. I preferred him when he was making techno, rather than when he became more famous for having lots of rare records. Diff’rent strokes.
I’ve never seen Thief so that’s news to me and I’d completely missed its use in Jonny Favourite, nice use of it now I revisit it though, was never a big fan of that track, preferred his later stuff and the Free Association.
How do you feel about a) it’s use in Michael Mann’s “Thief”, and b) David Holmes appropriation of that filtered white noise percussion on his early one-off Warp single “Johnny Favourite”?