Lunatic Harness is the fourth LP from Planet Mu owner Mike Paradinas aka µ-Ziq. It originally saw wide release on a subsidiary of Virgin in 1997, but has resurrected and reissued earlier this year along with Mike's My Little Beautiful and Brace Yourself EPs as a 25th Anniversary box set. It was an educational listen for me. I wasn't into dance music in the '90s so going back and indulging on of the classics and trying to understand how people must have thought about it during the era it was released in is was a fun and worthwhile exercise for me. Without elaborating too much, I can definitely see how this album made an impact on people. It's sequenced in a way to produce an all-encompassing, but genuinely, light mood and a tangible sense of environment. After listening to modern renditions of drill and breakcore that hazard towards making a more blunt-force impression, this is certainly a welcome and mature deviation in approach. A departure that obviously wasn't lost on audiences of twenty years ago and which retains its poignancy to this day. Historical retrospective aside, I personally enjoy Mike's aesthetic direction with the project. The beats and grooves sound polished and intricate, with a silty, space-aged tone that makes you feel like you're exploring a desert planet, with an unexpectedly mild climate, being chased by playful dust devils as you dowse for water and search for signs of a bygone alien civilization. Very charming and delightful stuff. I'm glad I dropped into the zone that it inhabits.
