Originally released in 2002, “Harnessed the Storm” was conceived as the opening chapter of the legendary 'Seven Storms' - a series of seven albums created within a single year and released via several labels under different names. “Harnessed The Storm” was the sole one in the series credited under the main Drexciya project. The album, which is considered to be one of the pair's darkest, was produced in a time of creative outbreak and emotional turbulence. The duo's confidence was at a peak, new techniques revolutionised musical production, but the duo also had to face Stinson's severe health issues. This led to a radical shift of pace in producing and releasing music. For the Detroit pair it was time to move on from their ground-breaking past. It was time for some shape shifting and wave jumping to occur, in Drexciya’s terms. This is reflected two-fold on the ten cuts of “Harnessed the Storm”. With seven different album projects in the pipeline, Stinson and Donald were able to give the atmospheres and structures of each individual work a more distinct focus, resulting in longer pieces and more defined moods. “Harnessed the Storm” integrated classic Drexciyan dancefloor moments like “Under Sea Disturbances” and “Digital Tsunami”, brooding experiments like “Dr. Blowfins' Black Storm Stabilizing Spheres” and “Aquatic Cataclysm” which rank with the most abstract, alien and stark in their catalogue, and a few choice cuts of wave-cruising beauty into a cohesive whole - the disparate elements fused by an all-permeating sonic dread. “Harnessed the Storm” is as much the uncanny silence before the storm - looming in the unknown, as the storm itself, making this album at once an incredibly focused sound production, as well as a journey of highest emotional complexity. Another masterful lesson in futurist dance music from one of its strongest forces.
