Gherkin' Jerks [Larry Heard] - 1988-89

Needless to say Larry Heard, aka Mr Fingers, was and still is a genius producer, blah blah blah. Thing is, only a few of his fans know about his incredible Gherkin' Jerks project – among other obscure projects of his. Two strange EPs (especially the 1st one, loosely based around the "sympte" medical concept) were released under this pseudonym. Some of the tracks sound like vintage 80s Larry, deep and hypnotic, eerily soulful, kind of upliftingly bitter. But some others, as I hope you'll notice, sound pretty remote and estranged from your usual Larry material. Let's take "Acid Indigestion", for instance : far from being a deep/acid serene number in the vein of "Beyond the Clouds", it seems to be a nervous "message-track" adressing the acid flooding of the Chicago house market at that time, but it is nevertheless a wonderful, fucked up acid track. "Saturn 5" is space-dramatic in a good way, a bit early-Carl Craig-ish (think Psyche/BFC Carl more than 69/Paperclip People Carl). "Din Sync" could be a proto-filter house track, complete with anguished soulful male vocal samples. "Blast Off" is almost Detroit techno (slightly synth-saxed-out!), and it's gorgeous – rather unsurprisingly, when you're familiar with Heard's general vibe. "Strange Creatures" could be a Millsart demo. "Don't Dis the Beat" and "Midi Beats" sound like the first scientific clandestine German tests made on "what we think will be called minimal techno or micro-house [but it's top secret material for the moment so please don't tell anybody]". This is pure machine music on these two.

Anyway here are the two Gherkin Jerks EPs on a zip. Enjoy, this is good good shit, esp. the lush gherkin logo below! Sorry for the sometimes low (yet listenable, imho) sound quality.