Tasti Box was one alias of production duo, Kelix and Mouse. In 1990 the pair moved from Iowa to San Francisco and became a part of the local house / rave scene. Lending a significant sonic hand to the city’s legendary, open-air parties, held under the Golden Gate Bridge. Their first release launched the now celebrated Zoemagik imprint, which went on to become home to artists such as Single Cell Orchestra and Young American Primitive. Tasti Box, together with these folks, helped define the `90s Bay Area sound.  New London label, Collective Direction, have now curated a double album of largely previously unreleased Tasti Box tunes. 

Everything on offer is basically house, but it’s a mixed bag that also bears the strong influence of techno and trance. It’s not afraid to dive deep, promise you paradise – complete with birds, crickets and frogs, or rock a breakbeat, often within the space of a single song. There are extended ambient intros, big beatless breakdowns, and the results are trippy, and unpredictable. Most of the numbers are epic, evolving, involving, jams. “Journeys”, with myriad melodic layers, as opposed to revolving around simple, immediate hooks. The opener, Mm, is blissed out, loved up and 11 minutes long. 

One minute you might be dancing to Black Science Orchestra / Ballistic Brothers-esque conga-ed groove – urged on by stirring snippets of a civil rights speech – only to have some rolling snares smashed in on the cross-fader and be taken somewhere darker, druggier. In this respect the songs selected also document and reflect a time when soulful garage and progressive house collided. You had people making records, heavily inspired by Junior Vasquez’s New York club, The Sound Factory, that were happy to throw in heavier, tribal drums and psycho string stabs, or a siren, it if got the job done. These were the daze of dangerous dubs by X-Press 2, Angel Moraes, Mike Delgado & Matthias Heilbronn.

Gurus are sampled alongside dancefloor divas. Quetzal talks of Mayan teachings. The energetic acid of Electrons, features an excitable, animated Timothy Leary. Synths rise in warm swells, get gated, twisted tight and metallic, then countered by careful, considered jazzy keys. The Stone Roses get looped. There are cheeky bites of Depeche Mode and Grace Jones. Dr Tripi sounds like Tyrone Brunson meets Johnny Chingas. Tracks morph back and forth between Pascal’s Bongo Massive and The True Underground Sound Of Rome. I don’t think there are any standouts as such. If you like this sort of stuff then you’re spoilt rotten. 

You can order this Tasti Box set directly from Collective Direction.