John and I met Compass Vrubell in Moscow during our stay there in 1996. He is one of the core of djs that helped make the Ptuch club legendary. He is a fun dj, the type who doesn't take it so seriously and always finds a way to have fun. He's a nice guy, but among the djs who could speak English, he could speak the least.

I had to stay at his apartment for a day while I was there when I noticed he had some gear. A Yamaha RX-5 (with 1 cartridge) and a russian synth that had no midi, cv or anything. He had no mixer or effects. He started to play for me a few of the patterns he had programmed on the RX-5 and I couldn't beleive what I was hearing. All that sound, so intricately programmed on one drum machine. He was just switching through patterns, all of them cool, and mixing in sounds here and there on the RX-5's built in mixer for what seemed like eternity. He had all 128 patterns full, he had nothing else to do all winter long!

I asked him if he had ever recorded any of this. He said something like "No, it's not finnished, I have to go into the big studio and put some stuff ontop of it and some effects first." I said something like "No way, this is cool just like this, bring the RX-5 to the club tonight and I'll record it on my DAT deck."

So he plugged it in downstairs at the Water Club, left and right out to left and right in. No mixer, no processing, just raw RX-5. He busted out about 7 jams in about an hour. I told him that I would put it out and if I made any money of it I would send him some gear.

Well, this record is really cool, but it's pretty weird and I haven't been able to send him anything yet. But I hear that hasn't stopped him. He's making tracks and he had a few loops on ser-009.

I hope he doesn't get stuck on gear. You can make an awful lot from so little. Check it out and see:

BPMF