Time Tourist Explained

Time Tourist
Type:studio
Artist:B12
Cover:b12_timetourist.jpg
Released:April 1996
Genre:IDM, techno, ambient
Length:55:59
Label:Warp
Prev Title:Electro-Soma
Prev Year:1993
Next Title:3EP
Next Year:1998

Time Tourist, or TimeTourist, is an album released by B12 in 1996 on Warp. The inventive packaging for the album makes it appear as if TimeTourist is an educational computer game written in a dystopian year 2166 and which looks back on the late 20th century as a primitive and quaint time in the development of mankind.

The track title "VOID/Comm" refers to "VOID/Comm R&D", a fictional 22nd-century company whose "B12 Systems" division developed "WorldCOM", a shared-mind technology which frees humans from physical interpersonal contact and the need to use very much of their brains. "VOID/Comm" is likely in reference to the Voigt/Kampf test administered in Blade Runner. The album's packaging makes reference to a number of other science fiction names corrupted over two centuries — Phettt (Boba Fett), Hein Len (Robert A. Heinlein), Seaclarc (Arthur C. Clarke), A.C Mov (Isaac Asimov), and Kaydich (Philip K. Dick) — as well as to the Roddenberry and Lucas "Sacred StarTexts".

Although the featured artist for the album is B12, on the packaging, each track is associated with one of B12's aliases: CMetric, Redcell, or Musicology.

Track listing

  1. "VOID/Comm" – 5:50
  2. "Infinite Lites" – 5:21
  3. "Cymetry" – 5:58
  4. "Gimp" – 7:21
  5. "DB5" – 1:42
  6. "Phettt" – 5:52
  7. "Epillion" – 7:08
  8. "Scriptures" – 6:58
  9. "The Silicon Garden" – 3:29
  10. "Radiophonic Workshop" – 6:20