Ritchie Hawtin released his debut LP, Dimension Intrusion, under the moniker F.U.S.E., in 1993, when he was only 22. The record initially came out on his own imprint, Plus 8, but was quickly picked up by Warp for their Artificial Intelligence series. Placing it alongside the work of people like Aphex Twin, Autechre, B-12, Black Dog Productions, and Speedy J. F.U.S.E. stood for Futuristic Underground Subsonic Experiments. 

The album collects a couple of Ritchie’s big room club bangers, F.U. and Substance Abuse, which first appeared as singles in 1991. Both are full-on acid attacks. The former rocks to a rigid rhythm, its snares MIDI`d up to a machine gun (1). Computerised heavenly choir-like harmonies softening its cacophony of cavernous, echoed hand claps. The latter stamps and stomps, cymbals crashing, Roland’s silver box snarling, aggressive, but its swing is slightly funkier than F.U.’s. Together these tunes laid the foundations for a TB-303 revival and paved the way for stuff like Hardfloor’s Aceperience. The title track, which layers new age noodling over a break-like beat, was originally called, simply, Dimensions, when it hit stores on a 12 in `92 (2). The remaining 10 tracks – save the spoken word collage of Logikal Nonsense – divide equally into “chillers” and “dancers”. 

The rapid, racing Train-Trac thumps and rattles, heavy on the reverb, as if it were recorded while traversing a long, dark tunnel. Mantrax is boisterous bass-bumping techno / trance. Pummelling and pounding, but muted, so rather than a pasting it’s a mad massage shaking you into submission. Another Time is more melodic, more Model 500-like. The drum programming on the opener, A New Day, foreshadows the TR-808 and 909 gymnastics of Ritchie aka Plastikman’s seminal Spastik, while the ambient epic, Theychx, predicts the monumental minimalism of the same pseudonym’s 1998 album, Consumed, by weaving a wonderful 13-minute worm-hole of healing, hypnotic oscillations. Nitedrive is another slice of sonic serenity. Sequenced straight after Mantrax’s rocket rushing through a meteor shower, it feels as if you’ve arrived on the other side, in frozen, empty space. Soprano synths singing a sad eulogy to the void and its sheer enormity. Slac is a slo-mo shot of languid, lysergic business, and then there’s Uva. This is the track that I remember most from when the record was first released. 

While F.U. was hammered at the parties I frequented, especailly Andrew Weatherall’s Sabresonic, it was Uva that spun at home. Its laser blasts, like Sci-Fi sharpshooters, and effervescent, bubbling electricity, like Frankenstein’s fizzing Tesla coils, illuminating lonely late nights adrift in bed-sit land. Smoking spliff after spliff, in box rooms in shared houses, til my fingers were stained and burned. With its melancholy minor key melody, the song fair knocked me side-ways, since I hadn’t listened to it in such a long while. Its strange, beautiful pitch-bent strings, rivalling Rhythim Is Rhythim’s Icon.

Dimension Intrusion is a classic, a techno milestone. Warp have thankfully finally reissued it. Which is wonderful for folks who couldn’t stretch to, or justify, forking out 300 quid for the 2019 Vinyl Factory box set. 

F.U.S.E.’s Dimension Intrusion is back out again, care of Warp.

(1) This phrase has been lifted in homage to Kris Needs’ `90s techno reviews in Black Echoes. 

(2) I wonder if this track was the “inspiration” for Damon Wild and Tim Taylor’s Laser Worshippers’ Theme.