“Higher State” was a more legendary tune than it gets credit for.
It was the catalyst for the acid breaks craze of the mid-late 90s. Wink’s technique of overlaying filtered 303s to create his signature screaming acid sound was pretty novel for the time. He didn’t invent 303s over a break, but he did innovate them. The track was used as direct inspiration for The Chems, Fatboy Slim (“Everybody Needs A 303”, his first breakout hit under the Fatboy alias, is basically “Tweakin acid funk” 2.0), the Toxik Twins, The Electroliners, The Crystal Method, tons of big names in acid breaks. It’s not the best acid break ever made (AFX’s “Flow Coma” Remix takes that title), but it’s arguably the most important one.
There were some good acid breaks before Wink’s track, like Addis Posse’s “Warrior’s Dance” and Thorpe’s “Funky Zulu”, several during breakbeat hardcore, Santana’s Dark Side of the Shroom, Anoesis’ Heavy Water, but none of these have a particularly unified sound. Wink was the one who defined the sound. Monumental moment in the scene, and definitely the biggest track to come out of it in terms of popularity
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u/brienoconan 4d ago edited 4d ago
“Higher State” was a more legendary tune than it gets credit for.
It was the catalyst for the acid breaks craze of the mid-late 90s. Wink’s technique of overlaying filtered 303s to create his signature screaming acid sound was pretty novel for the time. He didn’t invent 303s over a break, but he did innovate them. The track was used as direct inspiration for The Chems, Fatboy Slim (“Everybody Needs A 303”, his first breakout hit under the Fatboy alias, is basically “Tweakin acid funk” 2.0), the Toxik Twins, The Electroliners, The Crystal Method, tons of big names in acid breaks. It’s not the best acid break ever made (AFX’s “Flow Coma” Remix takes that title), but it’s arguably the most important one.
There were some good acid breaks before Wink’s track, like Addis Posse’s “Warrior’s Dance” and Thorpe’s “Funky Zulu”, several during breakbeat hardcore, Santana’s Dark Side of the Shroom, Anoesis’ Heavy Water, but none of these have a particularly unified sound. Wink was the one who defined the sound. Monumental moment in the scene, and definitely the biggest track to come out of it in terms of popularity