It's not that often that an artist's debut album can be said to define an entire sound or scene, but Akufen can claim exactly that. Following a string of hotly tipped EPs on minimal techno labels Trapez and Perlon, Akufen - the pseudonym for Montreal-based musician Marc Leclair and a humorous play on the French word for "tinnitus" - released his first LP, "My Way" to almost universal acclaim.
If his earlier EPs showed a penchant for synthesizing offbeat, strangely organic rhythms from clicks and pops, "My Way" arrived as almost a manifesto declaring a similar, but somehow more fully realized sound. While "My Way" shared the same approach of many releases in the minimal techno scene, it offered a kind of brand consistency by constructing many of its tracks from sampled radio snippets, resulting in a stuttered, sample-happy sound that was at once far more avant-garde but also more accessible than its contemporaries.
While "My Way" shared the same approach of many releases in the minimal techno scene, it offered a kind of brand consistency by constructing many of its tracks from sampled radio snippets, resulting in a stuttered, sample-happy sound that was at once far more avant-garde but also more accessible than its contemporaries.
The upbeat, hyperactive, almost ADD-inducing design of tracks like "Deck The Halls" (memorably remixed by Herbert) recalls not just minimal but also the sample-based brand of two step pioneered by Todd Edwards. It's a sound equally at hope being praised in the pages of music geek magazines like Wire, and wreaking havoc on dancefloors in front of audiences who have never heard of minimal in their lives.
"My Way" made Akufen an underground star of sorts, and while many would have jumped at the chance to translate such publicity into a career as a globe-trotting DJs, it's a career height Leclair been unable or uninterested in matching since.
The producer, who apparently doesn't care much for the limelight, has adopted a lower profile and fairly slow schedule of releases since then, preferring to pursue things at his own pace rather than just repeat the sound he established. At the same time, "My Way" and his earlier EPs continue to stand as classics in the minimal techno genre, and doubtless will be viewed that way for some time to come.
