Contact: james(at)keraunograph(dot)org
Automata | Chaosphere | EP | Death of Vinyl UK/Ninja Tune LUDDITE44 | September 1993
“In the same vein as Kosmik, this is hard inventive techno from a new label (UK-wise) to look out for. The best tracks are Chaosphere 4 & 5 which have that early Aphex vibe to it - remember Phloam and Phlaphead? ”
— Dave Clarke, Echoes, February 1994
“Chaosphere is an appropriate name for Automata's dense collage of sound. Each of the four tracks is built around a Rotterdam-style bass kick in the range of 147-150 bpm. But under that is laid a soundtrack more likely to be heard on a Hafler Trio album than a club single. Eerie drones, wind noises and voltage bursts mech with space-altering acid lines to create a mind-blowing hardcore masterpiece for your next rave in Hell.”
—Loud Music Seminar, 1994
“Says it's created by James Hamilton but this set of tight-lipped analogue stomping obviously has nothing to do with my obviously greatest journalistic influence! It's another spacey, squirting missive from the Toronto (wrong! -ed.) techno underground which is getting filtered over here by Coldcut's Ninja Tune.”
— Echoes, February 1994
“Side one has two tracks - Chaosphere 4 - which forms itself on overdriven kick drum out of a red noise Industrial soundscape, metamorphosizing in it's simplistic single-minded approach to body music to gain relentless sonic momentum. Dance music stripped down to it's base elements, without having sacrificed it's effect. Transference 2 is the longest track on the EP (at 10'43") and also the fastest by a narrow margin (150 BPM). Again House Music steps out of a swirling grey fog of synthesis, gathers itself and adrenaline-pumps the beat out of the speakers and onto the dancefloor. Again, the approach is fairly minimal & join-the-dots, but House has always been for physical rather than mental pleasure, and this track delivers where it counts. Gravity Well opens the second side, a very different approach from the flipside - minimalism of texture has been thrown out in favour of a congested white fuzz of angry electronica which arpeggios and twists this way and that, full-on and relentless. It sounds more like a tamed DOWNWARDS track - pounding piston beat wrapped in cyberpunk. Chaosphere 5 returns to the smoother washes of grey Industrial noise punched-through by pounding kick drum pulsebeat. ”
— Soft Watch, 1994
“Industrial, almost like Rotterdam (never as fast), distorted kick, trance hardcore from Halifax, quite interesting. Bravo, finally Canadian hardcore.”
— Robert de la Gauthier, Streetsound, 1994
“More mayhem from the distorted kick drum firm! All tracks are made at a sensible speed, around 170 bpm well sensible enough. It will definitely be cracking floors and boiling blood cells over the festive season. If you like it like this, then don't miss out.”
— Itch News, January 1994
“I had discovered AUTOMATA on the Death of Vinyl Revolutions Vol 1 sampler, and I knew what I should expect from this maxi: tekkno trance! Somewhat more violent thatn on the complilation, this 12" drowned me into the artificial world in which thousands of "in" teenagers are evolving nowadays. After at bit less than half an hour I came back from that banging Chaosphere, my two feet on Earth, what a relieve! (sic)”
— Side-Line Electrozine, February 1994