On September 4, Warranty:Void officially releases a rare posthumous LP from the artist Harland.
Mike Harland, aka DJ Jus' Rite aka DJ Pumapants was a fixture on the Toronto independent music and rave scene across the 90's and 2000s. Harland always wore a lot of hats - a DJ, a composer, a musician, a former keyboardist and DJ in '90s Canadian indie band Acid Test, and later a contributing member of experimental noise collective 10000 Watt Head.
In between bands and gigs, Mike was a prolific songwriter and producer, working out of a studio with high school compadre Alex Repetski, making beats for Hip Hop and electronic music, as well as jingles for Toronto Ford dealerships.
Sadly, Mike passed away in 2012 - but some of his experimental and electronic DAT recordings emerged though various channels and chums. Eventually landing in the hands of former Acid Test bandmate Adam Percy, these were digitised and mastered, and are now available exclusively online here, at Warranty:Void Records.
The result is the sixteen track album 'Original Master', a series of chronological, untitled, electronic musical musings from the most underrated maestros of the genre, likely recorded somewhere between 1995 and 2005. The eclectic style ranges everywhere from super minimal techno, industrial scratchiness, obscure trippy sampling and mood, Hip hop, and downright experimental.
Mike was never subtle.
While Warranty:Void is releasing this exclusively on our site, all the proceeds from this album release - Streaming and purchases - will be donated by the label in Mike's name to Canada's Center for Addiction and Mental Health.
Photo by Lawrence Brissenden