Environ is proud to present the Metro Area 15th Anniversary Edition, Metro Area's eponymous debut album, meticulously remastered by Alchemy Mastering's Matt Colton using the artist's original source tapes. This package combines all the songs from the original US and licensed European releases, and features new commemorative artwork unique to this edition. Originally released in 2002, the album was named as one of the Best Albums of the Year by Rolling Stone, and in 2011 it was voted the second-best Album of the Decade by Resident Advisor (with the timeless "Miura" voted #1 Track of the '00s).
Back in the late '90s, Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani bonded over their shared love of slower tempos and '70s and '80s NYC club culture. Obsessed with record digging and the sounds they heard on late-night "club classics" radio shows—and turned off by current releases they saw as artlessly “updating” sublime disco by sampling, filtering and subjugating them with huge kick drums —the duo set out to discover how their favorite old 12” records were made.
They naturally gravitated towards extended dubs of songs—full of strange mistakes and echoing backing tracks—instead of the better-known vocal versions. Lacking the big budgets and gear that made so many of their favorite classic records come together, they were forced to take a guerrilla approach. They reprogrammed their techno-oriented arsenal of secondhand synths and samplers, using novel digital recording technology to capture live instrumentation and prioritizing mood over hooks, and the resulting music was just wrong enough to sound unlike anything else being released at the time.
After just four underground 12" releases, the duo—now well-known as Metro Area—released their first and only album, Metro Area, in the fall of 2002. Fifteen years later, it's time to celebrate the culmination of their shared history and inspiration once again.
