''Time Tourist'', or ''TimeTourist'', is an album released by
B12 in 1996 on
Warp. The inventive packaging for the album makes it appear as if TimeTourist is an educational computer game written in a
dystopia
A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmen ...
n year 2166 and which looks back on the late 20th century as a primitive and quaint time in the development of mankind.
The track title "VOID/Comm" refers to "VOID/Comm R&D", a fictional 22nd-century company whose "B12 Systems" division developed "WorldCOM", a shared-mind technology which frees humans from physical interpersonal contact and the need to use very much of their brains. "VOID/Comm" is likely in reference to the Voigt/Kampf test administered in ''
Blade Runner
''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Di ...
''. The album's packaging makes reference to a number of other
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
names corrupted over two centuries — Phettt (
Boba Fett), Hein Len (
Robert A. Heinlein), Seaclarc (
Arthur C. Clarke), A.C Mov (
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...
), and Kaydich (
Philip K. Dick) — as well as to the
Roddenberry and
Lucas "Sacred StarTexts".
Although the featured artist for the album is B12, on the packaging, each track is associated with one of B12's aliases: CMetric, Redcell, or Musicology.
Track listing
#"VOID/Comm" – 5:50
#"Infinite Lites" – 5:21
#"Cymetry" – 5:58
#"Gimp" – 7:21
#"DB5" – 1:42
#"Phettt" – 5:52
#"Epillion" – 7:08
#"Scriptures" – 6:58
#"The Silicon Garden" – 3:29
#"Radiophonic Workshop" – 6:20
References
{{Reflist
1996 albums
B12 (band) albums
Warp Records albums