Bass Syndicate

The bottom-heavy Bass Syndicate is just one of the monikers DM Recording owners Mark and David Watson use to package their booming, woofer-destroying "Jeep music." Heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and Southern rap, the Watsons first appeared in 1992 as Bass 305 with the earth-shaking release Digital Bass. Many fans of electronic music dismissed them as "faceless" and "too derivative" of their German heroes, but the duo's music wasn't made for them. Instead, they marketed their recordings to car stereo shops as the ultimate music for showing off expensive stereo systems. It worked well, and with the demand growing and growing, the duo formed Bass Syndicate as an offshoot.

In 1993, Cyberbass-Virtual Reality became the project's inaugural release and included the warning "Mega Low Bass — May Damage Speakers." Releases like 1994's Slow Sci-Fi Bass made Bass Syndicate the "spacier" brother of Bass 305, but their appeal remained street level, pointed more toward the hip-hop crowd than techno kids. A Best Of appeared in 1998 and was followed by 2001's Techno Bass Essentials and 2003's Slow Low Techno. In 2005, DM Recordings started a series of Anthology releases with Bass 305, Bass Syndicate, and the related Techno Bass Crew all getting their own editions.