Acid House is probably not the first musical connection that springs to mind when you mention Border Community, but as anyone who heard Wesley Matsell‘s opening set at the Nachtdigital Festival (photos coming soon!) a couple of weeks ago will verify, there is clearly a slumbering Acid Beast that lurks within. In fact, Wesley played so many of our usual resident Acid ambassador Avus‘ favourite tunes that the tall database boy was left with the strange task of playing a surprisingly low-on-acid Avus DJ set when he took over at the decks.

But if you look carefully, the acid traces are there in our back catalogue, from as early as release one: Mr Holden‘s A Break in the Clouds (Beat Tool) was completed at the height of his Wink-mania, and it shows; Petter was enslaved by the same addiction when he delivered his boldly different version of The Difference It Makes. More recently, The MFA‘s We Will Destroy You tentatively dipped its toe in the acid bath with Ali “Bear” Douglas’ ‘Bear Dub’, whilst on his Hard Islands mini-album Nathan Fake cathartically let out all of the acid demons that were kept tightly under wraps during the more warm-and-fuzzy Drowning In A Sea Of Love days. Recent DJ Mixes suggest that those demons are here to stay.

Avus on the other hand has never been shy about his acid indulgences, coming clean early on with Real and Furry Hat B-side ‘Spnkr’ (complete with custom ‘Acid Paddle Tool’). And Avus is not just our go-to man for all things Acid: on the release of definitive Acid House documentary They Call It Acid at the beginning of last year Another Man magazine approached our resident Acidologist to contribute his own review of the film (sadly I don’t think it is available online, but back issue collectors should check the April 2009 issue). Avus has committed literally hours of acid-tinged noodling and squelching to mp3, only to be told by us that it would have to be a pretty next-level piece of Acid to earn him another Border Community release. It was at this point that he went off and bought his Moog and came up with the astonishing Poppy EP, so I hope in this instance you will agree that our heavy-handed A&R approach was justified!

Maybe I can even convince Mr Avus to don his journalistic (furry) hat once again for a spot of guest blogging around these parts. Until then, here is a storming Acid mix care of Glasgow’s mighty Optimo and the tasteful Radio Magnetic crew (which provided a welcome distraction from the weirdos of Shepherds Bush yesterday afternoon) to keep you going: