"With this comp Boston stakes a claim as a hotbed of experimental drum & bass activity. (The Toneburst crew shows) that American junglists are gaining ground on their British counterparts."
-Alternative Press

Paper Magazine cites Toneburst as part of a "brooding underground waiting to explode."

"The aptly named Toneburst Collective are a gathering of DJs, electronic musicians, and video & installation artists from the Boston underground. From experimental downtempo abstractions and squishy pulsations to slaughtering jungle beats, this 14 track disk has it all. Tracks build from otherworldly excursions which swirl around your eardrums through to breakneck d&b then slowly wind down like dying batteries in a walkman to ooze nonsensical vocals, elegantly constructed electronic ambience and computers going haywire.If you'd like to take a trip without packing any bags, then seek this out."
- Sharee - www.junglevoodoo.com

"Toneburst collective has an incredibly cohesive, though varied sound. All I'm left wondering is how did these guys learn to feed mushrooms to thier computers?"
-Decontrol Magazine

"Toneburst has picked up from where the illbient scene was last noticed, and has moved it toward an eclectic sound that easily transcends the former."
-Exp Magazine

"Boston's sleeping giant is no longer asleep"
-Digital Artifact Magazine

The following is an exherpt from a February 1998 article in the Boston Phoenix:

"...The 14-track Toneburst Collective CD, represents a ferociously eclectic body of work. The "Sand in the Sampler" remix of Electro Organic Sound System's "Percussive Waves" by /rupture is a terrifying excursion toward ragga jungle territory that mixes abusive pools of static with Arabic flutes, vocal samples, and an off-kilter snatch of the '80s multi-artist famine-relief hit "We Are the World." Spool head in a completely different direction with "Red/Blue," which layers chewy synth lines over drill 'n' bass for a mix reminiscent of the weirdstep jungle being done by England's Plug. Ojamoj deconstructs a hip-hop groove on "Googly," and DJ Flack offers tongue-in-cheek juxtapositions of everything from the Hank Williams samples of "Apollo Hank Funk" to the space-age hip-hop beats of "Glue Hawaii," which sounds like a Rastafarian merry-go-round gone haywire."

"'Apollo Hank Funk,' one of DJ Flack's cuts on the Toneburst Collective compilation (BlissRecordings), is a sonic collage glued together by a voice intoning 'carefully selected if not documented samples' over a beat sliced up from, of all things, Hank Williams guitar licks. The track, with its application of pre-millennial breakbeat science to a familiar country riff, is a perfect introduction to the work of Toneburst...

...One of the CD's highlights is a collaboration between Mike Esposito (ESP, Embryo/Spool) and Stu Brown, a drummer from Scotland. "Hundreds of Them (All Over the Place)" cranks out a growling, distorted bass line with an Ornette Coleman-sounding alto-sax squawk. The scratch and clatter of this track points to a collision of the aggressive remix ethic of jungle with the raw, virtuosic energy of free jazz. You might call it jazzy jungle, but it digs into more adventurous sample territory than LTJ Bukem's fusions of Kenny G ripoffs and jungle beats. Esposito says that his musical aim "is to continue to do jungle stuff, but not jungle per se . . . to find ways to work with the techniques and methods [of jungle] but not the same exact music."

track listing:

dj flack - melancholy path

That's over 73 minutes of deep dubtronix-inflected wreckstepping instrumental beatz for your listening enjoyment.

To order, and for more info. click here for the BlissRecordings website