The Grid came together in 1998. Richard Norris was a producer, remixer and sound engineer who had recently also started writing for the NME. Dave Ball had previously enjoyed critical and chart success as a member of Soft Cell, a duo best known for their 1981 cover of “Tainted Love.” Still together today, the Grid have released five albums and ten charting singles, the most successful of which was “Swamp Thing.”

Evolver, the group’s third album, was driven largely by the success of the 1993 single, which it in turn propelled to chart success when it hit the shelves in 1994. As a whole, however, Evolver is a surprisingly fun and eclectic effort, drawing from a range of techno, rock and ambient influences. It’s very much an album recorded in the mid-nineties, but it holds up rather well, and it’s well worth a listen.

The game was one of the first to feature music by the big electronic artists of the day. If you’re like me, you’ve probably got a few red book CDs in your collection. They’re the ones that start with a track full of interactive data, which you’d read with a computer or game console and skip on a CD player. Wipeout 2097 used the same technology; the game data was encoded on the first track, and the soundtrack was written across all the others.

A separate soundtrack CD, which included a different series of tracks by a broader range of artists, was released on the same day as the game. Featuring extensive liner notes and artwork by the Designers Republic, the soundtrack functions as a sort of time capsule full of the best of what music critics used to call “electronica.”

To put it in context, the album includes a track by Daft Punk, who were months away from releasing Homework. It features a track and a remix by Underworld, who were still riding high on the release of the soundtrack to Trainspotting just weeks before. There’s an instrumental version of “Firestarter,” the track that had introduced the Prodigy to American listeners earlier that year. There’s a track by Orbital, who were still a year away from releasing the biggest singles of their career. Oh, and there are two cuts by the Chemical Brothers, whose first number one single was released on the very same day as the Wipeout 2097 soundtrack.

Tracks by Leftfield, the Future Sound of London, Fluke, Photek and Source Direct round out one of the most impressive electronic music collaborations of its time. Get your hands on a copy.

It’s a short listen, but a sweet one. It’s techno at its most minimal, but that doesn’t mean it’s not consistently moving, or even soaring at times. “Economical” is a great word to describe this one.

It’s a fine EP by a terrific local duo that I’m glad to have discovered by accident. Do check it out.

I do wonder how my friend DJ Paul G, an unrepentant Skee-lo fan, would feel about his sampled appearance on this track. Personally, I think it works, even though sampling a song released in 1995 sort of blows the whole “eighties” thing out of the water.

It’s not a dense piece of music, but there’s a lot of weight and depth to it. The sounds of the early rave era are stripped to their bare essentials, and the end result is an echoing, insistent drumbeat orbited by shuffling uptempo synth and beats. It’s a lot like that scene in 24 Hour Party People where Martin Hannett tells Stephen Morris of Joy Division to play “faster but slower.”

Backed with “The Darkness,” a b-side that feels a lot like a continuation of the same musical themes, “Drop” is a fine introduction to the basic, heavier end of the genre. Do check it out.

But perhaps the most impressive take on source material is “Circles,” a 1995 single produced by English drum and bass DJ Adam F. It’s an intense and uptempo track that accomplishes the difficult trick of keeping the original melody intact while simultaneously reinventing it. Go ahead and listen for yourself.

The remixes by Andy C and Roni Size aren’t much of a departure from the original, but they round out the single nicely. All in all, well worth checking out.

Phlax is a worthy entry in the Skam Records catalog, which also features notable releases by Boards of Canada and the dudes from Autechre. It’s an airy, atmospheric disc, but it’s not without its beats, particularly on standout tracks like “Norton Midgate” and the insidiously catchy “In With the In.”

Type Xer0, released on the Planet Mu label that’s also home to acts like Luke Vibert, μ-Ziq and Venetian Snares, is naturally a much more aggressive effort. After the drum and bass frenzy of “Pitbull” and “Intron.v,” and the acid rhythms of “Carbon 60,” a mellow closer like “Naem” is a surprise, and a pleasant one indeed.

Both are available cheaply as digital downloads, and both are well worth your time and attention. Check them out, won’t you?

Certainly not the Timelords, better known as the KLF. Although they brilliantly satirized the experience after the fact as a foolproof plan in The Manual, it’s a safe bet that they were as surprised as anyone by the track’s success.

And to be fair, although it’s arguably the duo’s most notable work, it’s far from their best. Musically, The White Room and the Chill Out album easily trump it. “Doctorin the Tardis” is remarkable, sure, but more in the sense that the KLF’s decision to burn a million pounds was remarkable.

The CD version of the single stretches the premise to its limit. It’s good, and it’s catchy, but the sheer duration of it wears it down. A four-minute version of the track, for example, is perfect, while a 12″ mix exceeding eight minutes pushes the limits of the gimmick.

Toward the end, we get a remix called “Gary Joins the JAMs” that leans a little too heavily on the persona of an artist who’s since become regrettably synonymous with pedophilia. The instrumental version that follows, which is far more aligned with the Doctor Who side of the equation, cleanses the palette and wraps the disc up nicely.

In the middle of the mix, you’ve got the original version of “What Time is Love?” This version of the major KLF single, while novel and ambient in a fun way, is a demo at best compared to the finished product. Indeed, it sounds like an early Orb track, which makes sense in light of the fact that Jimmy Cauty was doing double duty among both groups at around that time.

What made that track great was the KLF’s risky leap into their much-loved pop music conventions. Yes, the rap lyrics were an improvement on the rather subdued instrumental version, but the true innovation was the addition of massive, utterly fake crowd response. Because of its use on this track and others, the KLF are credited with inventing the “arena house” genre – a rather silly designation that could only be applied to groups like 2 Unlimited these days, but an important milestone for the KLF nonetheless.

In the end, that’s what set the KLF apart from their contemporaries. Not the music they made, but the spirit in which they made it. For all the cynicism and subversion inherent in The Manual, for example, these guys had a love for pop music that no flash in the pan could claim, let alone replicate. In the end, it was likely that unashamed recognition for what people consider fun that made “Doctorin’ the Tardis” a winner.

How you go from there to the heavy, disconnected sounds on a PlatEAU record is anyone’s guess, but it makes for interesting listening all the same. Blending psychedelic elements with circling electronics and wild percussion, Spacecake takes a few listens to get into, but it’ll grab you soon enough if you’re willing to go along.

There’s a lot of similarity between PlatEAU and some of the lighter material produced by Download, an act that currently features the same two guys. But the music on Spacecake, at least, is a little rougher and more discordant in its rhythm than the more straight-ahead beats on a typical Download record. Either way, fans of one are sure to find a lot to like about the other.