The Micronauts - Love

The Micronauts, the musical ones at least, initially consisted of Christophe Monier and George Issakidis making truly spacey, acid flavored house music. They were championed by the Chemical Brothers, got to remix people like Underworld and Death In Vegas, and got a contract with SCIENCE, a subsidiary of Virgin (they were signed to Astralwerks in the US, another Virgin subsidiary). This is all circa 1999/2000, when electronic dance music was at it's commercial peak, so one would be hard-pressed to think that they didn't have the world by the balls, but apart from a single for The Jag and an EP, which was more-or-less a very long remix single, for Baby Wants To Rock, nothing else came of the union. Issakidis left shortly after, but whether he was fired or quit is not clear. What is clear is that while there were still occasional Micronauts remixes, no more singles were released and it appeared that Monier was retiring the name.

A few years ago, much to my surprise, Monier resurrected the Micronauts name, which he apparently owned the rights to in regards to his musical endeavors, and started churning out remixes, EPs and eventually a complete album, Damaging Consent. Unfortunately, little or none of the additional output from the late 90's and early 2000's ever saw the light of day and none of the releases from Baby Wants To Rock back are still available, and they, or at least the ones I've heard, are monsters! Filled with low-ass bass and ridiculous high-frequencies, these early releases are dance floor killers that shouldn't be missed. Their lack of availability has less to do with Monier's feelings about the tracks and more to do with Virgin holding the rights, which is probably the same with their unreleased recordings from that era.

The only verifiably unreleased track from that era that I've been able to find is called Love and I found it in one of Monier's solo dj sets. Apparently, an instrumental portion of the track appeared as part of a long dj set released on an alternate version of a later Micronauts EP, but the full track is yet to see an official release otherwise. The quality of the recording isn't as nice as I'd like it to be, but it's better than not having it. I've also included the single for The Jag which features an insane remix courtesy of Speedy J as well as the Micronauts' remix for the Chemical Brothers' Block Rockin' Beats. If there is enough interest in these tracks I'll also post the Baby Wants To Rock EP, but that's all I've got of the early Micronauts stuff unless someone would be kind enough to provide me with copies of their first two singles prior to The Jag.

The Micronauts - Love

The Micronauts - The Jag
01 The Jag
02 The Jag (Speedy J Remix)

The Chemical Brothers - Block Rockin' Beats (The Micronauts Remix)