Oliver!: Mescalinum United - We Have Arrived (4 April 1992)

“That’s Mescalinum United.  I don’t think they had a match today.  In fact, I’ve got an awful feeling that I’ve used that joke every time I’ve played that track.” John Peel, 4 April 1992.

This blog wasn’t as busy in 2017 as it has been in previous years.  Part of that was down to work pressures and even during 3 months of unemployment between February and the start of June, I found myself thinking that I shouldn’t overblog, when I should be looking for work or using the free time I had more productively.  I ended up in a job I don’t really want to be doing and my house still has lots that needs to be done to it.  However, my main regret with the blog for 2017 is that I didn’t get to write about We Have Arrived a week or so earlier than I have, because it was one side of a record called Reflections of 2017 and that’s another open goal that I’ve missed.

This track was already two years old when it started featuring on Peel’s playlists over March/April 1992.  It’s doubtful whether he would have announced or recognised it as, in the words of Discogs, “the first hardcore techno track”, given that it would have nestled alongside similar sounding records by the likes of Transformer 2 or Shake Inc. He certainly didn’t mention the word, Gabber, when playing it.  Considered alongside its flipside, it certainly feels as though Marc Trauner (aka Marc Arcardipane) the man behind Mescalinum United who would feature on many more Peel playlists in future years under the better known alias of The Mover, could claim to be a soothsayer.  With its steamhammer beat predicting the fury of our age; the sound ‘n’ fury squawks reflecting the white noise of both social media and political discourse; topped off with soaring sonic crescendos sounding like the nuclear missiles that psychopathic leaders are itching to use and which, on this tune, fly off into the distance leaving only a tease but no explosion.  We’re entitled to ponder that, yes , we have arrived.  Could we go home now, please?

If anyone thinks that, for a pioneering record, Trauner’s original isn’t hardcore enough - one of Aphex Twin’s remixes of it, could be right up your street.

Video courtesy of monotek darkmatter.