I am trying to hold my shit together here and I don’t think I’m doing too good a job of it. In “Analog XTC”, Norm Talley simply goes beyond what Deep House is supposed to be. It’s a record so dark that it makes “dark techno” as made by Teutonic men with a working knowledge of Heidegger sound like bubblegum.

The fuzzed-out riffs, droning like solid sheets of scrap iron warping in the wind, set a tone that invokes more WaxTrax than Trax. I can’t figure out the words the four or five syllable sample is mumbling, but I know they freak me out. They give way to a run of minimal percussion, a persistent, demanding pulse and distorted FX that sound like a tweaker took apart “Video Clash” and glued it back together again in a formula that only another tweaker could understand. This is eleven minutes, the entire side of the record, and it has neither beginning nor middle nor end: you could loop this for five hours and still discover new creatures and passageways.

There’s nothing wrong with Sascha Dive’s remix on the flip – I like it. In fact, I think it’ll be far more popular, because it’s more melodic and because it’s got that trendy synths-to-the-front mix that’s all the rage. But it’s missing the daringness of Norm and his voodoo machines.

Minimood Extra has released this on limited edition blue wax, and from what I’m told there aren’t many to go around. If you see it, buy it. If you don’t like it, sell your copy to me.