Psycho Breaks

Psycho Breaks carries the stubbornness of music its maker refused to consider finished. Across almost eight years, from 2008 to 2016, All Out returned to themes, changed names and versions, and learned how to reach the result he wanted. The debut grew from material that had already accompanied a substantial part of his life.

Two feelings came together in that persistence. There was a determination to prove critics wrong, and a simultaneous wish for their support. When The Ravers won over someone previously unconvinced by the music, the moment stayed with him. A response like that can matter more than broad praise: a familiar wall becomes a little less impenetrable.

The early Ravers Domination Of Breakbeat and Fucking Idiots marked the beginning of All Out Project and a real advance in the producer’s own estimation. Other themes had longer histories behind them. I Choose Noise drew chiefly on his Propagandising AMusic, with the experience of reworking Madonna’s Ray Of Light also part of its history. Music For Rituals grew from Frank Mockery’s Nedoromantic; Critical Beatdown continued the encounter with The Aluminium Tough’s Underground Love. Other people’s songs and original sketches were gradually becoming a language of his own.

Connecting that material mattered as much as completing each piece. All twelve tracks run as a continuous mix, at once an album and a DJ statement. Favourite Chemical Brothers and Prodigy records helped shape that form: their transitions turned separate songs into a larger experience. The photographs of factory ruins on the cover extend the album’s rave world, with abandoned spaces and music finding life beyond conventional venues.

That world grew from many sources. Twisted returned as Twisted Reaction, Electric Mesmerise as Mentally Disturbed, First Time as The Wormhole. Massive Tone emerged from work on Slipknot’s Before I Forget, with the Slipknot parts removed; Hot Damn followed work on Michael Jackson’s Jam. Musical memory was becoming something more than a list of influences. It was producing original material.

After the album’s May 2016 release, Linda B presented the whole main programme on ALLFM 96.9, two tracks per show. I Choose Noise had reached Floyd the Barber before the album and found a particular response among old-school listeners. Music made from a personal attachment was meeting people with memories of their own.

Club and Cortex versions, remixes and Deluxe would follow. The first Psycho Breaks remains the moment years of accumulated pressure found a shared form. Its story still contains the wish to prove something. Beside it is a simpler hope: that someone on the other side will hear.