Emerging from the ashes of Ireland’s early rave era – that had been absorbed into the vastly commercialised club scene of the late ’90s – was an oft forgotten, but exceptionally fertile period for electronic music in Ireland. Spearheaded by the then Dublin duo of Decal (later becoming the solo project of Alan O’ Boyle), nurtured through nights like Phunk City at The Funnel, Model One at Switch and at a later point midweek club haunt Electric City, an unlikely Irish electro movement was born; breeding an abundance of new labels, parties and producers hungry to make their mark. “Dreams of Electric Bleep” revisits a crucial time of development (1999-2005), when production standards on the island of Ireland rose in perfect synchronicity with the collapse of the music industry as we knew it.
While Detroit, The Hague and London heavily influenced the sounds heard in the clubs, clubs in pubs, warehouses and great outdoors of Ireland – it was producers from Belfast, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Limerick and Mayo who created the first significant chunk of high-quality Irish electro, demonstrated here over a range of styles (originally released on a variety of local and international labels). This double 12″ release – featuring key tracks from Decal, Magnetize, Metroneem, Americhord, Phil Kieran, Takeover Sound, Chymera and John Braine – comes on picture-sleeved coke bottle clear vinyl, and includes a download code.
Designed by Jonny Costello (Adult Art Club) with liner notes from Stephen Rennicks (Drexciya Research Lab). Mastered by Paul Mac at Hardgroove Mastering, vinyl mastered and cut by Simon Davey at The Exchange Vinyl.