Baby Ford
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All the way back in the late 80s, Baby Ford (or Peter to his friends) was producing classic records, creating his own versions of the early acid house sound championed by artists like Armando in the United States. Ford saw some success with the release of his early singles, Chikki Chikki Ahh Ahh and Oochy Koochy, on Mute offshoot Rhythm King Records in 1988.
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These early Baby Ford tunes molded the raw acid sound of Chicago into a somewhat slicker (but no less narcotic) sound, shot through with grimey 303 lines but also heavily melodic. Also different was the hip house style percussion that hinted at the emergence of full-on breakbeat rave and catchy, self-referential nonsense vocals that made the tracks seem like credible pop crossover material, so much that Baby Ford opened for Depeche Mode at some dates on their Violator tour.
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With releases on his own iFach and on respected techno imprints such as Perlon, Baby Ford continues to push music forward two decades after his first release.
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Future releases would leave the sampled vocals behind to delve into a less radio-friendly sound, and with the release of the BFORD9 album in 1992, Ford was beginning to incorporate minimal techno elements into his work, mirroring the evolution of the electronic scene as a whole from its glowstick-waving early days to a more serious approach. Aphex Twin took an interest in the album and his remixes of BFORD9 material would be released later in the decade.
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With the formation of iFach Records, and his collaborative work with Mark Broom and Dave Hill, Ford began to move in a more and more minimal direction, to the point that by 2001's Sacred Machine, he was pushing the limits of the reductive sound towards something that almost went beyond what any in the genre had done so far. With releases on his own iFach and on respected techno imprints such as Perlon, Baby Ford continues to push music forward two decades after his first release.
