Drexciya – Neptune's Lair

Drexciya's triumphant return after a 4-5 year production break due to the ill health of James Stinson. A whole new generation of fans would discover them through this album, their first release for Germany's Tresor. It's a mysterious and challenging album in many ways, showcasing their raw and live in the studio analogue approach with an equal share of tracks with light, darkness and confusion. With a generous 21 selections on the CD, this is a deep journey into the very heart and soul of Drexciya.

Dopplereffekt – Gesamtkunstwerk

Gerald Donald aka Heinrich Mueller, had also been following his own particular vision under the name Dopplereffekt since 1994 with collaborator Kim Karli. Their brand of stark and ultra minimal electro, but still delivered with a sense of humour, would have a huge but delayed influence on so many electronic artists, right up to today. This compilation captures their first 3 peerless releases that they originally released on their own label, Dataphysix.

Transllusion – The Opening of the Cerebral Gate

Released during the chaos and confusion of Drexciya's Storm Series, where they would discard and replace their name with a series of substitutes over 7 albums in 1 year. The genre-less and alien sounding music you find on this album is still very dance-able, truly music designed for the head and feet.

The Other People Place – Lifestyles Of The Laptop Café

Also from Drexciya's Storm Series, this is quite possibly the most soulful and emotional (and only vocal led) of their albums. This album revealed a whole new side to them and has become a huge favourite amongst fans, yet another timeless classic.

Arpanet – Wireless Internet

Following on to some degree from Dopplereffekt's template, this album for French label Record Makers, is one of Gerald Donald's real hidden gems. It still sparkles, sounding like it was made just yesterday or will be tomorrow. Here he is revelling in some of his signature sounds (for the last time), just when other producers were beginning to catch up with him.

Der Zyklus – Biometry

This and the previous years Dopplereffekt album, Linear Accelerator, was the point where Heinrich Mueller surprised everyone by a sudden and extreme evolution in his music, into much more experimental (for want of a better word) territory. Biometry appears to be a dystopian themed album with music to match, with strangely disjointed rhythms, truly music from a parallel dimension. Overtime his new music has turned out to be a real grower in the best sense and this album in particular has revealed its own logic and magic over the years. When was the last time music really challenged you?

Zwischenwelt – Paranormale Aktivitat

Heinrich Mueller started a habit of collaboration with new artists in the mid 2000s, using the Internet to collaborate and reach his fans. This icy cold wave masterpiece was the result of one such grouping with Beta Evers, Penelope Martin and Susana Correia. Many of the tracks here are vocal led and made for an intense, focused and strong collection.

Drexciya – Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller IV

Clone's Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller series was a newly mastered 4 volume series of Drexciya's early and unreleased music, mostly for Detroit's Underground Resistance label. This was the moment when everything came round again, reaching new and old fans and making new connections with their later releases. If I have to pick just one I would go for the final compilation in the series as it has the most unreleased material as well as some early classics.

Lab Rat XL – Mice or Cyborg (Clone Aqualung Series Re-issue)

So much music gets labelled 'timeless' and 'futuristic' these days, yet few records truly stand the test of time of a few months, let alone years. Enter Lab Rat XL's 2003 album Mice Or Cyborg, the last album of the series of the seven Drexciya Storms, and one of the most future-proofed records to ever grace our turntable. Mice Or Cyborg followed on from Shifted Phases The Cosmic Memoirs Of The Late Great Rupert J. Rosinthrope and Transllusion's L.I.F.E. to complete the seven storm cycle. Even after all these years, it's an utterly captivating, life-changing experience from start to finish, one of those albums that everyone and their mate should own a copy of.

Upon its original incarnation, Mice Or Cyborg instantly stunned a generation of listeners with its jagged, angular electro sound. Little were we to know at the time what the future held, yet listening back now it's striking how melancholic the music feels, whether this is just us looking back with a glazed expression and history on our side or it was James Stinson laying clues for what laid ahead, we will never truly know.

With vinyl copies of the original edition and 2008's repress increasingly hard to track down, Clone's excellent Aqualung series has succumbed to many of our wishes and issued this freshly cut press of the most daringly different collection of Detroit electro machine soul songs to vinyl once more.

While you can spend days trawling the internet looking for information and clues that will try to unravel the mystery forever locked within the heart of these recordings, we'd suggest just bagging a copy as fast as you can and immersing yourself as deep as you can dive into the mind of this once in a lifetime music and musician.

It's impossible to overstate the importance of Mice Or Cyborg, possibly the most important music to stem from the mind of the once in a lifetime truck driver, musician and guiding light artist from Detroit... James Marcel Stinson - RIP.