Alcatraz’ the Bastardo EP, a Short Essay on Following Impulses

A lot of the stuff I buy is just an impulse decision. One afternoon, I decide I’d like a new music cd for the car. I go out and return with 5 cd’s, a few games and maybe a book. These days, I don’t do it all that often anymore, mostly because I simply don’t have the time for it any more and also because I never finished any of those games or books (the audio usually gets to be played).

Alcatraz’ The Bastardo EP on eBay

Surprisingly, I hardly ever bought something I didn’t like. Quite to the contrast, I found a few gems I would have never bought if I had done the research.

On the music front, I picked up Eat Static’s Science of the Gods because I had heard about the group somewhere somehow, I had no idea what music to expect. But I was amazed and my musical world expanded. I bought Jef K’s My House compilation because I really liked the image (seriously) and I’ve never heard better house since. Authechre, Orbital, Ken Ishii, etc would never have entered my cd rack if I hadn’t experimented.

Amidst those many positive experiences, the negative ones are far and few between. So I hardly ever bother reading reviews, I tend to go with the flow. If I watch a movie, I usually read the reviews only after I’ve seen it.

This post is about one of those negative experiences. I bought the Bastardo EP by Alcatraz at a record fair, back when I was still buying records. The most important reason I brought it home was that I got a discount when I bought 5 records and I only had picked out 4. I though it was going to be an ok trance record, but it turned out to be a bummer. A cross between the hardest of trance and borderline boring techno (not all techno is boring, mind you). It’s a style, that, for some reason, has become popular again lately. I don’t know why, but the record seems to be pretty sought after.

Here’s one track from the EP, so judge for yourself:

If you like it, I’m currently selling it on eBay