As the whois record for aquabahn.com asserts, this domain was created on 15-Sep-1998. The history behind it’s conception is directly connected to the originators of the term ‘aquabahn’ – Drexciya.

I got my first (the first!) Drexciya 12″ Deep Sea Dweller by taking the bait from the owner of a small San Francisco mail order shop and since then was hooked. Everything about the release appealed to me, the deep electro music, the aquatic allegorical track titles, the crafty run out groove etchings, even the fact that the B side spun inside out, really gave me a thrill.

Having already tuned my radar onto the 313 bassed labels Underground Resistance and Red Planet, it was easy to then hone my sonar in on Drexciya’s future releases and soon enough Drexciya 2: Bubble Metropolis rose up from the Detroit depths. It’s title track featured an audio introduction which I would use (and continue to use) as an introduction for my own sets and mixes. It is in this introduction that I first heard the word “aquabahn” used.

Some years later while working in a web development company, my creative colleagues and I were brainstorming domain names for a web presence for my little mixed tape label I was calling Rorschach Tekniques. Knowing most people would not remember how to spell that (and include the purposeful second word typo) I sought after some compound words that in late 98 were still widely available as domain names. I remember thinking how great the word “AQUABAHN” was and more, how succinctly that would work for me on so many levels. In an instant, I did a whois on it, a half second later I saw there was no registration for it and after a second had elapsed, on September 15th 1998, I became it’s “owner”.

It should be known though, that my affinity (love and respect!) for Drexciya is not the only reason why I chose the aquabahn for my web presence, it very much has something to do with my own upbringing, here on the North Shore. To someone growing up and living along the coastline, where the edge of land meets the ocean, the ideas of an aquabahn truly take on a deeper meaning, especially when applying these ideas in the most allegorical way that Drexciya so deftly did. So, like the vast range of Drexciya’s own work, here on the aquabahn you can find the musical waters sometimes calm and still or other times quite rough and choppy. You may dive deep into darkness or wade easily into the shallow and light.

Whatever you do…

“…please use extra caution as you pass the aqua construction site on the side of the aquabahn , I repeat, proceed with caution.”