Interstellar Fugitives

With Interstellar Fugitives, the Underground Resistance family expanded to include DJ Rolando, Drexciya, Perception, Chaos, Andre Holland and the Suburban Knight — most of whom were longtime colleagues and UR labelmates, but never an explicit part of the organization. Although each track is designated to a different producer (with only one credit for Mad Mike himself), the album is tight and of a piece throughout, focused on hard-hitting, fast-moving techno-funk with a bit of influence from the electro-flashback recordings of Drexciya. Much of the 808 percussion and acid lines are intact from the earliest UR recordings almost ten years earlier, while the guttural vocal samples and industrial edge to "Nannytown" and "Afrogermanic" chart the longtime connections between Detroit and Berlin. It's a pity, then, that the best tracks on Interstellar Fugitives — the darkside techno of "Something Happened on Dollis Hill," "Interstellar Crime Report" and "Zero Is My Country" — are also the shortest.