Accumulative Effect is an album I really wanted to like. Listening to the album brought back fond memories of watching MTV’s techno showcase, Amp. In those days, I’d sit in front of the television, thumb hovering over the pause button, trying to tape the videos without catching any commercials. Unfortunately, that was 1996, and since then, almost everything in the preceding sentences has become obsolete. VCRs? Tapes? MTV videos? At least Eminem was wrong about techno (although apparently he was right about Moby).

The tracks on Accumulative Effect would have worked well as incidental music on Amp or as background music on an X-Mix compilation. For a while, I was hoping that all music would one day be like this. Then I grew up. My tastes matured. I listened to a lot of techno. And I began to discern the difference between trendsetting and derivative.  

According to Robert Jourdain, the author of Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy (no, not that kind of ecstasy), we gain our musical preferences in middle school, primarily based on what our friends listen to – and we never change. This explains the proliferation of classic rock and adult contemporary stations and provides a frightening window into the future of radio, salons and weddings. In other words, what’s popular at any given time will always be popular among a high percentage of the listening public. Don’t like the new Mariah Carey? Tough. You’ll be hearing it for the rest of your life.

The bright side is that there is still a market for artists such as Z-Arc: those who took ecstasy (yes, that kind of ecstasy), went clubbing, and grooved to the more mainstream end of techno in the late 90’s. To such folks, Accumulative Effect will be musical catnip. “I didn’t know they were still making music like that!” one might exclaim. “I’ve got to get that!” The Z-Arc fan would then, by Jourdain’s theory, be satisfied with their purchase and continue to seek others like it, rather than attempting to expand their musical horizons.  

According to Bartleby, the word accumulative “has an overtone of acquisitiveness, or it suggests a characteristic of a person (who) simply collects.” In my opinion (and, I believe, the opinion of most of our readers), the purchase of this album would be accumulative only, and would confer no pleasure upon the listener. The preferable option would have been for Z-Arc to display a cumulative knowledge of the history and development of techno, and to have referenced it on this release. Alas, this is not the case.

-Richard Allen