Spacetime Continuum - Sea Biscuit Album

I feel like I must be the only person who hated this album since the day it came out. It's pure ear candy, almost a parody of what '90s ambient techno had been building up to at the time. Everything is mixed up-front and loud, crystal clear with no subtlety, no depth, no spaciness or spaciousness. Drugs don't even help. Every song is pointless other than to say "hey! listen to this!"—no mood, no atmosphere, no journey for your mind, no sense of importance or emotion...just spacey synthesizer noodling. That's great for some people, but to me it just sounds like it belongs on a New Age label. Not surprisingly, it was wildly popular in coastal California. Back in the Midwest, we reacted somewhere between, "oh, that's nice, I guess" and "what is this shit?"Anyway, if you like this album, you probably also like the Higher Intelligence Agency Colourform and the Future Sound of London Lifeforms albums. Beep boop beep beoop swoosh whoosh *reverb cranked up to 11*.I penned a similar review in January 1995, when I was a bit more opinionated (yet still trying hard to identify an audience who should buy this album immediately):Summary: West Coast style ambient techno for fans of that sort of thing.*RETCH* This is my first exposure to Jonah Sharp's overhyped music and I think it is the worst piece of crap I've ever had in my CD player. If anyone is wondering what I mean when I say "West Coast ambient", this is it right here. I didn't even know anything about him when I got the CD; I didn't know where he was from, but as soon as I heard the first track, I knew he was on the West Coast. By track 3 I had him pinned to San Francisco. By track 6 I shut off the CD player because my Midwestern ears couldn't take it anymore. Gawd, it's like Mixmaster Morris with a lobotomy, and on Prozac. Sharp makes squeaky clean noodlings that are devoid of depth and amount to little more than elevator music for teenagers on E. Every sound is crystalline and right up front. Effects are used but in predictable ways, their apparent purpose simply to increase the sugar coating on the overflow of ear candy. Emotions? None. Imagery? None. Perhaps the rave kids new to the ambient scene and electronic music in general get something out of it, and if they do, that's great; they can have my CD, no charge.Oh, now, it isn't all bad. "Subway" has more good elements than bad, if a little drawn out. "Floatilla" is more listenable than the rest. And a few of the tracks have some nice sounds buried underneath the filler. But I still have to say this kind of music gives ambient a bad name. That's great that they've got a healthy scene out there that is developing its own sound, but it's just not for everyone. Who should buy this CD? If you know you already like the West Coast ambient sound, you should love it. If you want to get a taste of what it's all about, and you think maybe I'm being a bit biased (which I freely admit I am), take the plunge. You could always trade it in for lunch money. I know I will.

You spent this much time to criticize something this good? Sad.

Wack review. Just plain wack. I love the music on this album and I hope to find a copy some day. I love that 1992-era ambient sound, its pure bliss to me.

Irregardless of your diatribe against Sea Biscuit this is a classic to many fans of 90s ambient electronica and in particularly me. I think the audio quality is decent not the best and further more I dont compare this to ANYTHING FSOL released because aside from using electronic instrumentation the music is miles apart but you being a supposed aficionado should be aware of that fact. That stated this album flows nicely and has a nice minimalist feel thru out the tracks and in particular I like the use of multi-tap delays on alot of the drums. Music is subjective and you have a right to your opinion but I feel you are in the minority when it comes to your flaccid, teenage like remarks. However if you felt the need to re-post a negative review from 1995 you have deeper issues than whats on the surface. Perhaps take a stronger dose of Prozac and go back to listening what ever the hell your Midwestern ears are comfortable with!

I have to say, "Sea Biscuit" is not my favorite Spacetime Continuum. But to me it was early on in Jonah's output and in 1994 the San Francisco scene was very much captivated by the nascent Internet revolution that was just making its early waves. Hence, the very aquatic and reverb nature that is decried. Besides the tech romance, as was evident in pubs like Hyperreal, early Wired, Mondo 2000, and of course early XLR8R -- as well as via more academic writers like Donna Haraway ("Cyborg Manifesto") and fiction fabulists like Douglas Rushkoff ("Ecstasy Club") -- the Bay Area and "coastal California" was very much occupied by English expats, who were enamored with the sunnier weather (though it is quite dreary most of the year in the San Francisco Bay itself in comparison to say, L.A.), the mystique of Haight-Ashbury (a la Acid Test history, Hendrix and The Dead), the Dionysian nightlife of the Castro, the draw of Hollywood (L.A. had many of the same dynamics, including cinema), and of course Silicon Valley. Jonah was from Britain himself, as was the whole Wicked crew and Charles Webster (Love From San Francisco), and as a result they brought an over-the-top psychedelic "rave" energy out here. Most of that British Invasion skipped the Midwest, to my knowledge, so I can understand the confusion of the hippie-dippie, New Age California stereotype without the benefit of knowing more about the lesser known influence of the West Coast rave scene's MDMA-fueled London escapee contingent (and I don't mean every escapee had just stumbled out of the fog machine of Danny Rampling's Shoom club). Understandably, all of the U.K. was on fire with "rave" "techno" "acid house" overnight and spilling over then (it is about half the size of California), and when folks like Jonah escaped to California to find something different, they indeed hooked up with the West Coast's more laid back and rainbow psychedelic vibe. But I disagree some with the idea that it was all noodling and parodic, or at least with the idea that "Sea Biscuit" is wholly representative of what was going on here in terms of a congenital diagnosis. We had everything here, from house to techno to hardcore, in varying degrees, but no media apparatus to tout it (unlike London, which is the political, economic and cultural capital of England all in one, or Chicago, Detroit and NYC, which had birthed the main genres in the first place). And yet similar to Chicago or Detroit, the West Coast had indeed its own American musical traditions that would come to bear -- from cool jazz to L.A. funk via War and Brothers Johnson, to new wave and goth a la Missing Persons, Berlin, Oingo Boingo and Depeche Mode's second-home reception in L.A., to Dr. Dre and S.F.'s Stones Throw. Another somewhat unexplored connection in that regard was the migration of Motown from Detroit to L.A. in the '70s and '80s -- which certainly did impact things here in terms of pop (i.e. Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, etc...) In any case, back to the electronics and Spacetime -- ironically enough, Jonah was one of the folks out here, especially in S.F. who was trying to bring a more techno sound to the Bay. He was explicit about that aim in interviews come the late '90s. That is why, in my opinion, "Emit Ecaps" is more spacious and minimal, and a far superior album to "Sea Biscuit." I would wager it's right up there with the albums listed in one of the replies, like Reload's "A Collection of Short Stories," which has a similar balance of techno and ambient. I don't think "Emit Ecaps" would deserve at all the same dismission about its character or sonic strategy as was targeted above against "Sea Biscuit." They are vastly different, as can be garnered by the remixers who signed up for the "Remit Recaps" album: Carl Craig, Move D (check their Reagenz collab), and Autechre. Even so, you can hear that "Midwestern" bent in Jonah's background even before "Emit Ecaps" (he was reportedly pounding Detroit techno and the like with Mr. C in London for example before he moved to the States) on tracks like "Drug #6" (https://youtu.be/AJE48mS_Bc4) and his Strange Attractor project, like the classic "Golden Gate" E.P.: https://www.discogs.com/Strange-Attractor-Golden-Gate/master/176675I'm writing this to reflect the fuller record on Spacetime Continuum for folks who may not know anything about him, lest they get the impression that it all sounds like "Sea Biscuit." It does not. "Sea Biscuit" is just a moment in time -- a more optimistic, idealistic, and somewhat goofy milieu in the Bay Area that, in my opinion, had more to do with early '90s rave psychedelia meets Netscape, Alta Vista, and so forth than Spinal Tap (see Jonah's collaboration with Terence McKenna, which is even more "Left Coast" shroom-y). I lived in the Bay Area at the time, so I can attest to the city's innocent "cyberspace" infatuation -- even though there were naysayers even then, years before Google and Facebook swallowed the world with their algorithmic brainwashing.Also, I would add that Higher Intelligence Agency's "Freefloater" is quite different from "Colourform," and is also a more mature album that shows some of the 1993/94 ambient tropes being left behind for more subtle pastures. But given the U.K.'s history with Jamaica, reggae and dub, I dig HIA's sound and foundation in dub's echoes -- especially given Bobby Bird is from Birmingham, which has a potent West Indies community. And on Future Sound of London's "Lifeforms," it's a divisive album for many electronic music fans and critics. Simon Reynolds trashed it in his book "Energy Flash" and Michaelangelo Matos took a swing at them too in "The Underground Is Massive." I don't agree, though I understand the umbrage. Also I can see, again, that UK connection between "Sea Biscuit," "Colourform" and "Lifeforms" that was pointed out. But even in that threesome, to me FSOL were way out on their own tip. And I love that. It's an oddball album, and not at all what people wanted from them at the time. But the same group that did "Humanoid," "Metropolis," "Pulse State," "Q" and "Papua New Guinea," more than earned the right, in my opinion, to step out of everyone's comfort zone into the void. Also, Keichi Suzuki's "Satellite Serenade" to me seems very much of the "Lifeforms" vibe, though I guess it retains the grooviness of The Orb, etc.In any case, I find the regional point of view or "bias" very interesting and fun to explore. I love Reload, Fehlmann and Global Communication. Don't know Baked Beans. Will have to check him out. Cheers and respect.

@ enfantterrible – These are some of my favorites from that era:Suzuki K1 >> 7.5cc* - Satellite SerenadeGlobal Communication - 76:14Reload - A Collection Of Short StoriesRemotion: The Global Communication Remix AlbumThomas Fehlmann - Flow EP (particularly "Epique")Baked Beans - Baked BeansRobert Rich - Trances / Drones

Interesting, i always thought "Lifeforms" was a classic. Which albums would you recommend from that time? something with real depth, space and mental progression as you say?

Highly recommended if you're into 90's ambient stuff.Favorite track : Voice of the Earth.

one of my favorites.highly recommended.

An incredible album that perfectly captures the essence of what made early-90s ambient so transcendent. Everything is here – long, effortlessly complex structures; floating, gorgeous synths of all shapes and sizes; effective and carefully used rhythms (never intrusive); and melodies/motifs that stay with you long after the album is done.There were many producers operating in this ambient or intelligent techno style around this time, but few managed to create an album that stands so strongly as a whole. Highly, highly recommended to anyone interested in exploring ambient music circa 1994.

SEA BISCUIT, Spacetime Continuum's first solo album (if you ignore ALIEN DREAMTIME), is one of the albums that brought ambient music to the public consciousness. "Pressure" tinkles its way into your mind via some jazzy keyboard work before the beat comes thudding in with added acid to bring you back down to earth. But "Subway" is more breathy and airy, and "Ping Pong" twinkles with its metallic tones, whereas "Voice of the Earth" is all about the drift. Both "Q 11" and "A Low Frequency Inversion Field" drift too, the latter with plenty of submerged bubbles, but the jewel in this ambient crown is "Floatilla," which is carried along into outer space on its long, low tones, and the moment when it pitch-shifts seems almost heavenly.

This is a real must in the ambient music collection, it's a delight from start to finish. Much more laid back than later Space time continuum stuff. Long sweeping melodies, and soundscapes drift and meander seemlessley and without any sudden tempo changes or the breakbeats of his later stuff, making it a wonderful album for moving in an out of dream like states. It will end almost without you noticing, dissappearing as unobtrusively as it arrives. My mood is always lifted and i never get bored by it. This is a great chill out album.

An untouchable Ambient classic.Endless layers and spheres of sonic beauty.Uncountable variations, shapes and forms of sound from all kinds of sources.All falling into place within one solid body of music and art.Incredibly complex, yet weightlessly floating ear candy.Right up there with FSOL's "Lifeforms".

Mixed together as a single experience, Sharp manages to create a work of art through very few sources, though at very audible levels. Ping pong contains the most substance, but everything is deftly crafted and receives my utmost respect. No other artist has put up an effort in between Jean Michel Jarre and weeny ambient artists. This one eludes all negative criticism.