MC Spatula - "Backdoor Assassins: A Platw Remixes (Expanded Edition)", a tribute to old WATMM!

Hello EKTers of 2024! I am extremely stoked to announce that today I have released a project that I have been working off and on for the last year and a half on, which is inherently tied to this place and its past. It's called "Backdoor Assassins: A Platw Remixes (Expanded Edition)". Originally released on CD-R in 2003 and mailed around the world to other EKTers, this is a collection of remixes of a very dumb track that I made back in 2001 called "a platw! (YAy)". The following year, I uploaded the stems to EKT and asked the community to make versions, inspired by the deep listening of some of my favorite records growing up like NIN's "Further Down the Spiral", or maybe Linkin Park's "Reanimation". The result is a really diverse little zeitgeist slice of Y2K-era DIY IDM, with everything from what I would describe as industrial techno to liquid drum n bass to abstract harsh digital noise to alt hip-hop.

For the last two years, I have been on a stint of reissuing my old records for widespread digital release, treating each one as an opportunity to engage with the material in a different way. I felt this record was the best way to re-introduce some of my oldest music publicly, but the main motivation was that I wanted to create a digital liner notes booklet for something. And this project was a great opportunity to talk about a lot of things that are broader than just my old music. Things like life on WATMM in the early 00s, netlabel culture, the primitive software we used to use back in those days to make music on PCs when it was just barely becoming possible to do so, so on and so forth. So all of that has been compiled into a 22 page PDF that comes with the purchase of the record!

If you have no information or context about who I am, see this post in General Banter from when I came back here last year to start gathering information for this project. Big shouts out to @springymajig, @mcbpete and @taphead, all old timers who are STILL HERE that worked with me on this last summer. In all, I managed to track down roughly half of the original artists and interact with them to some extent. It was wild to reconnect and so rewarding with some old friends like Entorwellian and Theocide after 20 years.

Anyway, I would really appreciate it if you checked this out, because it was a real labor of love to put together and I'm quite pleased with it despite my own track being the literal weakest element of it lol. This collection went from a backup of 160kbps mp3s to this restored version in about 2 months of intensive work, with another 3 or so months of interviews and research, and a photography session for new artwork, and this last month putting together all of the artwork and layouts. Fun fact, if any of you are into M.E.S.H. he makes an appearance here as Denizen which is a prehistoric moniker he used back in the day when he used to collaborate with fellow WATMMer-turned-mainstream artist Wisp. Also, in keeping with the "forum culture" aesthetic of this album's concept, a few of you may find yourselves shouted out by screen name in tiny print in the special thanks

Thank you and please enjoy!

I just created a full-album upload version for YouTube with the liner notes embedded, for even easier access!

Wait... i always thought mc spatula was a sinicalypse (RIP) alias 

Nah mate you got us mixed up lol

Thanks for this, I was around in that era and I don't remember this particular release but I remember the scene here and the netlabels that you mention in the liner notes, particularly Monotonik, Earstroke and TavCOM. I've always been quite organised about my mp3 collection, adding to it and pruning it over the years, so this inspired me to search through it now for those old netlabels and see what I've held onto from that era:

• Monotonik - aleksi virta - ..Meets Torsti At The Space Lounge (2003) - favourite track Princess Melodiae
• Earstoke - fieldtriqp - old haunts (2006) - favourite track InFlight
• TavCOM - wisp - about things that never were (2003) - favourite track gentle slopes
• TavCOM - wisp - SAW2 Reworked (2004) - favourite track Lichen

Also over the years I picked up and kept a lot of stuff from the 'most IDM' compilations that Fred organised and the occasional Project 168 "make an EP in a week" events, and I had a hand in collating the Watmmopolis project. And then these days most of the music I listen to is from Bandcamp which I guess is the modern equivalent of these old DIY netlabels.

Thanks for putting this together eggohan, its like a carefully made luxury boxset celebrating and aimed at a tiny micro-community from 20 years ago. I was suprised to see that you were about 13 back then! Eventually you should put the liner notes online as a blog post or something, its an interesting bit of history, as you say.

@zazen this is awesome, thanks for sharing these netlabel links!!
And you nailed the intent of the project thanks for appreciating. Also, yes that's right, I was 12 when I made the original track and 13 when most of the remixes were made. I was this place's token 12 year old that every internet community has.
The full liner notes are viewable throughout the duration of the YouTube video, but yes putting them in duplicate on a separate blog post would be a good move. I will do that sometime later this year.

Cheers mate!