Black Secret Technology is the fourth album by UK electronic producer and acid house pioneer A Guy Called Gerald, first released in February 1995 to widespread critical acclaim. It has since been described as the best jungle album of all-time by publications such as Fact, Pitchfork and Freaky Trigger.

Gerald recorded Black Secret Technology after a period spent growing confident with new production methods and equipment, both analog and digital. He later explained that "by 1995 I had found several ways to paint with sound," and noted that "every track I recorded using a different technique. I play the mix console - it’s my instrument." The album's liner notes, written by Gerald, reference the music of ancient African tribal cultures as inspiration: "methods of rhythm helped early man to get in touch with the universe and his small part in it [...] I believe that these trance-like rhythms reflect my frustration to know the truth about my ancestors who talked with drums."

In 1996, the album was repressed on CD and LP formats with new cover artwork and the bonus track "Hekkle and Koch" placed as the album's opener. In 2008, a remastered edition of the album was released, this time with the original 1995 cover art and the removal of both "Hekkle and Koch" and the unlisted hidden track "Touch Me". The album’s famously "murky" mastering was improved slightly, according to critics.

Since its release, Black Secret Technology has received widespread acclaim and has been described as a "candidate for "best jungle album ever." In a 1995 review, Andy Smith of The Guardian proclaimed that Simpson was "among the first of his peers to corral [the genre] on to a satisfying album" as he had previously done with acid house, calling it “enthralling."Select placed the album on their list of Top 50 albums of 1995 at number 16. Discussing the 1997 reissue, Ian Harrison of Select stated that "there're few records in this fast-moving genre that could sound as good as this does now," adding that "the album will one day have him listed among Sun Ra/Lee Perry/George Clinton cosmic clubhouse of interstellar visionaries." In 1999, Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger described it as the "best jungle album ever," stating that Gerald "latched onto a more turbulent tradition, the jazz-funk-electronica of Pangaea-era Miles Davis or Sextant-era Herbie Hancock, and the music he made boiled like theirs." He ranked "Finley's Rainbow" as the sixth best single of the 1990s.

...
Wikipedia