Year: 2025

Artist:
Darren Price

Title:
Under The Flightpath

Label:
NovaMute

Cat#:
NOMU48

Release Date:
16th June 1997

Format:
CD, vinyl, download & streaming

Tracklist Vinyl:
A1.
Airspace

A2.
Lose No Time

B1.
Counterpoint

B2.
Things Change

C1.
Long Haul 747

C2.
Blueprints

D1.
Phizz

D2.
Over And Out

Tracklist CD:
01.
Airspace

02.
Lose No Time

03.
Things Change

04.
Blueprints

05.
Counterpoint

06.
Intermission

07.
Long Haul 747

08.
Phizz

09.
Over And Out

Tracklist Beatport:
01.
Airspace

02.
Lose No Time

03.
Things Change

04.
Blueprints

05.
Counterpoints

06.
Intermission

07.
Long Haul

08.
Phizz

09.
Over And Out

The names of the tracks 5 & 7 are mispelled.

Tracklist Bandcamp & digital services:
01.
Airspace

02.
Lose No Time

03.
Things Change

04.
Blueprints

05.
Counterpoint

06.
Long Haul 747

07.
Phizz

08.
Over And Out

“Intermission” is missing.

Press Info:
Darren Price
Darren Price sits chewing on a mouthful of mashed potato in a West London eatery. A quietly spoken unassuming bloke, his warm laugh and welcoming smile make you feel instantly relaxed. Admitting to a love of dance music and reggae , Darren laughs at the suggestion of calling his classy debut album “Pricey Meets the Rockers Downtown ( In Woking). “I don’t think I’d get away with that one ” he chuckles. But you see Pricey has much more in common with the likes of Tubby, the Scientist and the like. Pricey has managed to take a much used blue-print and indelibly scrawl his own identity all over it. An innovator making music in the shadow of Heathrow airport and the roar of Concorde twice a day. oh yeah, and Pricey hates heavy metal.

Aged 26 Darren Price is a bit of a Donald Trump of West London. With his fingers in enough pies to swamp Mr. Kipling’s warehouse, Woking born, Price has crammed in a massive amount in those twenty six short years. Absorbing the mayhem around him and transforming it into a positive rush of activity, kick starting a rapidly developing DJing career and pushing his acclaimed recording efforts into the critical spotlight it seems, Mr Price does not miss a trick. A right proper artful dodger if you like. With an aircraft-hangers worth of DJ dates behind him including a virtual residency on the continent where, like Dave Angel, he is worshipped like a long lost brother, and a string of exuberant techno cuts on both NovaMute and Boys Own, Darren Price’s debut album for NovaMute, ‘Under The Flightpath’, looks set to drag Darren from the shadows and a lifetime’s residency in the best kept secret club to the premiere division. Birds, booze and a private jet beckons. Well, maybe.

Like a legion of kids who have gone on to transform the trajectory of musical history with their beat box fuelled visions, Darren was swept along by the electro boom of the early 80’s. Absorbed in a world of breakbeats, proto-raps and youths spinning on their mum’s best cuts of lino in shiney tracksuits, Pricey cajoled his mum into letting him experiment with sounds and beats on a set of antiquated decks in the family’s garage. “It was one of those old disco systems,” he remembers, far from dewy eyed. “It was awful, my mum was forever coming in to tell us to turn it down.” The rest was to follow, amateur attempts at graffiti, council sponsored breakdance events and the quest for the latest pair of trainers. With footballers and favourite uncles relegated to the lower divisions of the ‘ace folks’ league, Darren hailed a new set of heroes. For Pricey, Mantronix and the Sugarhill Mob now ruled the roost.

Yet the disparate pieces eventually slotted together in the late 80’s with lost weekends spent at the feet of the mad hedonistic rush that was acid house. Plodding through the doors of Shoom week-in week-out Darren was soon to acquire the vital spark that propelled him from observer into participant. “I wasn’t into it at the start”, Darren admits, “I then went to Shoom and had the most amazing time. I’d heard a lot about the place, but it was ages before I became interested enough to go. When I eventually did it changed my life.” The energy and will to be located slap bang in the middle of the rollercoaster ride of repetitive beats and drug fuelled grins led Darren to take things a bit more seriously. The disco unit was binned, Technics bought along with some odds and ends of primitive equipment and Darren Price mark one was born.

Taking on a job at a small promotions company next to the fledgling Boys Own, Pricey was ideally located. With the newly born Boys Own spitting out the likes of Weatherall, Rocky and Diesel et al, Darren soon began to pick up a gaggle of heavyweight supporters. With Weatherall initially picking up on the Price cause, Darren rapidly began to develop a sound reputation, eventually culminating in a well handy stint as Underworld’s official DJ, where he provoked the crowd into a slavering mess prior to the band’s arrival on stage on their 1996 World Tour. The marriage worked seamlessly and further enhanced Darren’s reputation.

So June 16th 1997 brings us to his debut album for NovaMute, ‘Under The Flightpath’, following on from his previous outings for the label, the highly respected ‘Attic’ and ‘Blueprints’ EP’s. After a variety of outings under a number of guises such as Boys Own Centuras, Darren has eventually ditched all monikers preferring to work under his own name. Working in a studio located slap bang under one of the main flight paths at the end of runway number one at Heathrow, Darren has refined the sound and energy of the various jets that rattle his windows and rock his foundations into a classical techno assault, that pays homage to Detroit’s innovators. Distinctly techno in it’s form, yet drawing upon his strong English lineage Darren has crafted a unique British techno creation full of peaks and troughs and enough emotion to fell Cilla Black at fifty yards. Not content to rely on the hard and direct route favoured by many, Darren has wheeled out an album that fluctuates from minimal assaults to warm, lush tracks drenched in emotive string arrangements and heart warming sound stabs. If Juan Atkins moved to West London he’d sound like this.

So it seems with Darren unlikely to roadtest his latest offering we will have to be satisfied with basking in it’s lush, dense soundscapes. Having created an album that could quite happily sit alongside Carl Craig’s ‘Landcruising’ the UK has eventually found a techno pioneer to be proud of, an individual who is able to expertly manipulate his machinery to produce raw emotion that so many miss in favour of cold, hard and direct assaults. The unassuming fellow from West London looks set to conquer. Iron Maiden management please note: Darren Price will not be available for any future tours. Any daughters needing slaughtering should be forwarded to Mr Ozzy Ozbourne. Thank you.

Under The Flightpath
Sitting with Darren Price is a tad disconcerting. With his quiet relaxed manner that instantly puts you at ease, one question begs to be answered. How the fuck can you equate his serene exterior with the gut-pummelling techno he pumps out as part of his regular DJ sets or the heart warming lush techno creations currently showcased on his debut album for London based NovaMute Records? Weird one. I suppose you expect him to be a hyperactive ball of energy firing questions at responses at a rate quicker than Carl Lewis’ shorts. Then again, I suppose most things in life are not what they seem.

Darren Price, 26, born in Woking, raised on a diet of 80’s electro and acid house is currently making music in a small cottage studio he shares with Craig Walsh at the end of a busy runway at Heathrow airport. Every few minutes the peace is shattered as a flying lump of steel stuffed to the gills with expectant holidaymakers excelerates into the skies a few feet above the house’s roof. Darren seems unpeterbed, claiming reticently that you get used to it after a while. But then again I suppose he’s wrapped up in a world of grand string arrangements, electro beats and complex drum patterns. The past few months has seen Pricey piece together a debut album that single handedly restores one’s faith in British techno. Eclectic in its form, it relies on this mixture of styles and approaches rather than hitting the listener with a string of 4/4 challenges.

Opening subtly with “Airspace”, drenched in bubbling hook lines and a drifting ambience that overrides a solid beat, the album rapidly moves into electro territory, a sort of homage to the days when Pricey honed his DJing skills in his mums garage, spinning Mantronix and the like on a set of shitty old decks. “Lose No Time” comes out like a sprawling bastard brother of drum and bass, constantly threatening to lurch into jungle territory at any moment. Thankfully it retains its abstract edge and seamlessly merges a proto-jungle beat with a host of techno nuances. Passing through the moody edged techno brawler, “Blueprints”, a former single, “Counterpoint” rises like a long lost relative of Kraftwerk’s “Tour De France”. Sprinting along, heavily ladend down with a chiming electro beat, the ringing high hat sound is strongly reminiscent of the German funsters finest moments. The Carl Craig- esque “Intermission”, with its intricate emotions, opens out into the apocalyptic “Long Haul 747” that ducks and weaves, reminiscent of Underground Resistance’s techno tinged electro moments. Proceedings end with the gentle wash of “Over And Out”, expertly placed to draw the album to an end with its calming soundscapes.

Assured and unafraid to piece together a spectrum of varying themes all tied by the same techno thread, Darren Price has created a stunningly accomplished debut album. Like the planes that rumble over his house day in, day out, Pricey’s debut album could carry him to unknown territories. Good luck Captain Price, safe journeys.

Snippets:

Full Track Streaming:
“Blueprints”

Special:
“Vinyl DJ SET London Astoria Oct 1994 / Underworld live”

Recommendations:
Depeche Mode’s “Ultra | The 12 Inch Singles” w/ Price remix on Mute
all release on Mute & sublabels like NovaMute

Buy Vinyl:
originally released in 1997

Buy CD:
originally released in 1997

Buy Download:
Darren Price @ Bandcamp
Beatport
iTunes
more soon

Commercial Streaming Services:
Tidal
Spotify
Anghami
Apple Music
Deezer
Youtube Music

Websites:
Darren Price
Darren Price @ Instagram
NovaMute
NovaMute (Germany)
Mute
Mute (Germany)