One year following the entry of "Aftermath" into the British charts, Nightmares on Wax released a first full-length that rivalled any other techno debuts of the time, excepting only its immediate predecessor in the Warp catalog -- LFO's Frequencies. The "Aftermath" blueprint (skeletal bleep techno with the dark undercurrents cropping up in much post-rave techno) is in full force on several tracks, like the follow-up club hit "Dextrous" and the depth-plumbing bass of "A Case of Funk." Elsewhere, though, NoW expand the sound of bleep in several intriguing directions: "Coming Down" represents with paranoid breakbeats wrapped around a minimalist framework; "Playtime" sounds reminiscent of Soul II Soul; "How Ya Doin'" is a great old-school shout-out track; and "Mega Donutz" brings a British spin to playful American hip-hop like De La Soul. Unjustly relegated to the history bins (and even more of a relic because of its radical differences from the later NoW catalog), A Word of Science is much more than just the other great early Warp LP.
A Word of Science
Nightmares on Wax
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A Word of Science Review
by John Bush
Track Listing
| Title/Composer | Performer | Time | Stream | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nightmares on Wax | 03:25 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 2 | Nightmares on Wax | 05:19 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 3 | Nightmares on Wax | 05:15 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 4 | Nightmares on Wax | 00:44 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 5 | Nightmares on Wax | 05:21 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 6 | Nightmares on Wax | 05:11 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 7 | Nightmares on Wax | 04:26 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 8 | Nightmares on Wax | 03:22 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 9 | Nightmares on Wax | 04:13 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 10 | Nightmares on Wax | 04:39 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 11 | Nightmares on Wax | 04:04 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 12 | Nightmares on Wax | 02:19 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 13 | Nightmares on Wax | 06:03 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 14 | Nightmares on Wax | 02:59 | SpotifyAmazon | |||
| 15 | Nightmares on Wax | 03:13 | SpotifyAmazon |
