En-Tact

I’m at a 1.5 that I’m gonna bump down to a 1. I just can’t find the hook.

It’s fucking boring as shit, man. I love a good ‘90s House soundscape when it’s done well. There are plenty of House or House-adjacent albums on the list that I’ve given 4 or higher to. It’s a genre I tend to love because usually, there’s something dynamic to it all that feels like the video game soundtracks I tend to love. This album had absolutely nothing dynamic to it whatsoever. It gets the drums right. That’s about it; everything that layers around those drums is either useless or barely makes a dent on the soundscape in a meaningful way. When we got “90” by 808 State, I was blown away by “Pacific 202” and how much it felt like a cut from Sonic CD. It’s still one of my favorite discoveries on the list.

Herein lies the reason why I’m compelled to bump this down to a 1. I was prepared to admit that this album, however flawed it is & how boring it gets in the moments where there’s absolutely no sense of progression whatsoever (of which there are many), did at least hook me into a few tracks. I think there’s roughly 4 that kinda worked for me; “Move Any Mountain”, “Human NRG” (for the 808 State connection), “Make It Mine” (with the contrast in the guitar just kinda making me laugh), and “666 Edit”, for at least bothering to do something mildly unique. Those 4 tracks along with a general “it was mostly just kind of eh” vibe to it would put this at a 1.5 bumped up to a 2.

This album, however, commits a cardinal sin that I simply cannot let go unpunished. I hate every single time an album does a remix of an earlier track as part of its main tracklist. I knocked Limp Bizkit for it, I knocked George Harrison for it, I knocked Marvin Gaye for it, I knocked the damn Wu-Tang Clan for it, and I’m gonna knock the hell out of The Shamen for it. This album does the EGREGIOUS step of doing it twice: “Hyperreal Selector” is just “Hyperreal Orbit” again with a barely changed beat, & it has the GALL to title a track “Progen 91 (I.R.P. in the Land of Oz)” only for it to be a remix of “Move Any Mountain”. Hell, “666 Edit”, which is ‘mildly unique’ can basically qualify as ANOTHER remix of Move Any Mountain given that it’s just sampling that track to begin with. This album remixes itself twice & samples itself once in a way that makes it feel so, so stale that I simply can’t find a good reason to reward it by bumping it up to what would be the most pity-driven 2 I’ve given since “Haunted Dancehall”, which should’ve earned a 1 too.

I wish there were something, anything that I could find to justify going back up. There are a handful of decent intros & ear-perking moments, but those quickly lose intrigue, and losing intrigue for 11 out of 15 tracks is like hearing a baseball cracked so hard that you have high hopes for a home run, before ending up as a foul ball. Imagine that for an entire hour. I’m sick of this fucking at-bat, man; either pitch me a better song or just strike out so we can all get on with it. This album failed to pitch me a better song for pretty much the entire runtime, and it took an hour to finally strike out. It says something that the first one was the best one before it just kinda fell down entirely from there. I just don't know if it had to be on the list. Hence, a 1.5 that I’ll bump down to a 1.

Thought it might be ok, then he started rapping on the first track and it never left that spot

Make It Mine is an absolute belter of a track but apart from that this wasn’t for me whatsoever

Fun at first but far too long to really enjoy.

2.0/5.0

pretty decent but way too long

I "enjoyed" this more than I expected. Definitely not my favourite genre (or a genre I'm familiar with). However, if for some highly unlikely reason, I ended up in a dance club, this would be actually ok.

It is pretty varied and, for instance, I enjoyed "Move Any Mountain" or "Make It Mine" (with its guitar riff).

This is between 2 and 3 stars for me. It may have reached 3 stars if it had been 20 min shorter, and/or if it had included a few more tracks with the guitar sound of "Make it Mine".

This review will be based on the 1991 version released to the United States.

The Shamen are certainly one of the interesting bands to include in the 1001 Books. They started as a psychedelia band out of Scotland in the 1980s, until frontman Colin Angus and bassist Will Sinnot got a taste of the London acid house movement. They met vocalist/keyboardist Richard West aka Mr. C and DJ "Evil" Eddie Richards, and they all worked together to transition the group into the rave scene. That transition would be made apparent with the release of En-Tact.

This album really does feel like it only could have come out of the blossoming UK acid house scene in 1990. While there are traces of the band's earlier psychedelic sound, like with the occasional guitar line on "Human NRG (Massey)", the core of this sound is the four-on-the-floor drum machine beat, the squelching synthesizers, ambient textures, and Colin's effortless delivery opposite Mr. C's braggadocious faux-rapping and Plavka Lonich's sensual vocals. This style was certainly implemented well on a bouncing single like "Move Any Mountain", the lush Latin-infused guitar rollick amidst the tinging beats on "Possible Worlds", the pensive quiet storm with the prominent upward electronic keyboard line on "Omega Amigo", and the slightest sample of the record-scratch from Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" in the transitions on "Lightspan". All the while, the lyrics are largely abstract yet maintain a positive outlook, only ever overt with the sampling of an anti-apartheid speech on "Hear Me (O My People)". It certainly made for the kind of dance music I would imagine was going on in the UK underground clubs at the time, and I can vibe with that for a bit.

But then came along "666 Edit", where I started hearing the familiar refrain of "Move Any Mountain", and I had a sinking feeling. As it turns out, the album ends with remixes of earlier songs. I wouldn't have minded it if these were bonus tracks, but there is nothing to indicate that they were. So by the time I got to the third rendition of "Move Any Mountain" with "Progen 91 [I.R.P. in the Land of Oz]", I was feeling admittedly fatigued from the repetition. Honestly, if this record ended with "Hear Me (O My People)", it would have been viewed in a better light. I will commend the inclusion of multiple electronic groups and DJs, including the likes of "Evil" Eddie, Orbital, Lenny Dee, and 808 State for providing their remixes, but at some point, we have to trim the fat.

Overall, I get the vibe of a record like En-Tact. It's certainly a fun house record in the moment before the fatigue crept in, and I can applaud The Shamen for making the transition. Sadly, though, the group would split by the end of the decade, as members focused more on their solo projects. Still, they had made their impression at the right place and the right time.

I'm not a big techno fan, but I dug this enough to get back around to it on occasion. Solid effort for a genre I am not a big fan of.

While it’s not offensive, it’s just whatever, background music to me.

My last experience with vocal electronic music was, ahem, not great. So I don't exactly have high hopes for this one. It turned out to literally just be mind-numbingly boring background music. Nothing particularly interesting is going on here. Lyrics aren't really of much interest to me, like the rest of the album. I do think the length is excessive, especially for an album that is mediocrity in sonic form. I will occasionally vibe to electronic music, but this doesn't feel like a particularly good example of the genre. It would get a 2, but it's way too long, so it's a 1.

This album is the lowest ranked album of 1990 globally. Other 1990 albums rated by me:
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm(2/22)-5
Heaven or Las Vegas(3/22)-4
Bossanova(4/22)-5
Fear of a Black Planet(5/22)-5
Shake Your Money Maker(6/22)-2
I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got(7/22)-4
The La's(12/22)-3

This was a groove, though it did drag at some points

I enjoyed what I heard.

I would love to hear the original album but I heard enough to know that I still like 90s dance music and The Shamen were a short-lived but good part of that scene.

'Move Any Mountain' may well be a classic Shamen dance track but it's not on the original album you Spotify dip-shits so why is it the opening track on your stream? If I select an album on your wank streaming platform I want to hear that album - not what you fuckers think I 'should' hear.
Thank you.

The Good: This hasn’t been touched!
The Bad: We were dupped by shamens… it has been touched…
The Ugly: All the touchy feely on this album…

Electronica isn’t my thing… but it serves a purpose every now and again… like, during walks when you need to think about nothing…

Did I enjoy it? No.
Did it help with the walk? Yes.
Shall we shoot down the middle on this one?

3*

It is not awful by any means but there is no world where this album could be considered essential. I have heard much lower lows in other albums but I am not seeing any worthy high.

6/10 [DROP]

I would describe this as night club dance music. It was somewhat energizing while I was cleaning out my fridge, but it can get kind of repetitive if you're focusing too hard on it.

Didn't hate it but can't really say I liked it. I am just lost with these older electronica albums. With most of the popular genres I can fit the records into a story of subcultures and influences that helps me appreciate them even if they aren't exactly my thing. But to me this just sounds like an alternate fan soundtrack to the Matrix. Yes I know the Matrix hadn't come out yet, no I don't care. I didn't dislike listening to it so it isn't a 1, but I can't rate it a 3 because I don't think I can make a coherent statement about any of the tracks, except there was something about mountains...

Too long.

very house! i think environment matters when listening to this. would be much more fun in a club and not sitting in my bed listening off of my laptop.

Nah

Remarkably boring club music.