Peter Chambers: Somewhere between the buzzswept soundplanes of Playmade and the introspective headroom of 240 Volts lies Aus, a label dedicated to the clean percussive lines and deep-sunk washes of dub-tech-house. It’s all a matter of “taste, not waste” (to purloin a phrase from Losoul), and it’s on full display here, polished smooth and flowing forward in full effect. Like Estroe’s recent hit “Driven” or older gear on Poker Flat, Motorcitysoul’s “Kazan” glides forward on the soft push of its lush melody, which blossoms over four minutes into a long, slow, lean break which holds just enough back. Classy gear for warming up cool-hearted floors.

The My My remix on the flip does little for the overall effect of the long, linear build which makes the sheen shiny in the original. It’s the musical equivalent of cubism, breaking the planes of the original into diamond-shaped shards – then re-fitting the split facets together in the frame with lots of clever-clever edits that amp up the complications but detract from the overall effect.

Colin James Nagy: The original is a Detroit-inspired big room tune that tastefully touches on classic influences while embracing modern tones and production qualities for a near-perfect hybrid of old and new. A heavy heeled kick drum anchors layered synths, dropping into a nice, soft ambient lull before building back up again. The track doesn’t try to do too much, or get bogged down in unnecessary complexities. It just works.

Just about anything My My lay their hands on lately warrants a listen, and their remix on the flip is no different. They inject slightly more funk and swing to the track, also altering the structure and breakdown slightly. It’s not a major overhaul given the strength of the original, and speaks to their increasing talent as remixers - knowing when to leave well enough alone, while still leaving their own mark on a cut.

Aus Music / AUS0706
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Six months ago I’d never heard of Maximilian Skiba. I chanced upon him in a record store, when I picked up a curiously scribbled-on EP with the suspiciously eccentric title “Apple of Disco” (see review here). My inquisitiveness was quickly rewarded with one of the kookiest, most interesting of EPs I’ve heard lately, fashioned through a form of electro soundscaping that moved between references, emotions, and structures more times within the space of one track than some mnml labels have in their whole back-catalogue. Without being a slavish Moroder/Carpenter cribber or dogmatically retro (*cough* Legowelt *cough*), Skiba laid out a ruggedly individual imprint that screamed “talented eccentricity” through a Moog Vocoder and a disco breakdown.

But this is something else. Gone is the hyper reverential work, in its place, tooth-loosening machine electro that kicks harder than a methed up drag queen in a burst of jealous rage. “Transphormer” spreads its muscular legs all over the A, galloping along at 45 with plenty of pressure for the peaktime…and in fact, the perfect “scene” for this record is a catfight between the aforementioned drag queen and his/her unfortunate partner. Sydney Roy (sounding very close to Siegfried and Roy) revs things up for his remix with a dose of “boots and pants”, reigning in the quirk and losing the great touch of Skiba’s original in the process. The B2 is another gem, “Bye-Bye c64″ – it’s one of those tracks you fall into, come down with, or break up to – like Todd Terje’s “Eurodans” or Closer Musik’s beautiful “Maria”, this is a real sentimentalists treat. Eyes on the young Pole.

Eva / EVA 006
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[Peter Chambers]

The definitive low point of this year’s Winter Music Conference was standing outside the venue for the Get Physical event and being told that Booka Shade were about to wrap up their live set and the door fee had just doubled to $40 a head. At 4:30 AM. This almost makes up for it, though.

“Tickle” could be an addendum to last year’s amazing Movements LP, with those itchy little tapping sounds and swooning ethereal pads the duo favor so much. Their use of percussion in particular seems to have gotten even richer, with oscillating drumrolls and filtered beats sounding both metallic and static-fringed. Tickle? Indeed it does. Even sweeter to these ears is “Karma Car,” balancing a crunchy sawtooth undercurrent with chime and bell-like tones. The wood-circle faerie dance of alternating melody lines that starts close to the two-minute mark gets even tastier with the addition of finger snaps and one of the boys singing wordlessly along. It’s rare to find a track that combines a clean, ultra-modern aesthetic with a great sense of humor, but this is definitely one of those moments. Simultaneously classy and joyous, as we’ve come to expect from this lot.

Get Physical Music / GPM 0706
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

My God, has it really been three years since the “plugin acid” revival ran its course? Remember all those Dalhbäck and Dahlbäck records? Actually, they were pretty good, I thought. But maybe it’s wrong to ever talk about acid as a “revival”, when it’s never really gone away for more than a moment. Like the Blues Brothers, acid seems to be as revoltingly effective as it ever was, now matter how much of a caning it gets.

Little wonder though, when you hear a record like the “Jackin’ Freak” remix of Crowdpleaser & St. Plomb’s wonky floor-warmer “1,2,3″. This track manages to bottle the psychopathology of an entire lost weekend in the space of six minutes, starting out quite politely, bugging like a pair of Rodney Dangerfield eyes for a moment, then calming right down—just in time for your neat segue into the low-slung scape of the Daschund mix of “Zukunft”, which echoes and eddies its way into a party mood (in a very mnml way), with lots of splashing granulated textures, and that “sleazy bee” melody retained from the original version. Und (remember “Fox in the Box”—now that was a polarizer) brings her love for out-of-place-vocals and her ear for melody to bear “Today”, coming up with a nice A to B microhouse record, replete with strange intrusions, crowing cocks and toy machines.

This is a great EP that manages to do what remix EPs should—complementing the spirit of the original and introducing new relationships, new proximities that suggest both the source and an inspiration. Hot on the heels of Crowdpleaser & St Plomb’s album and the recent Kate Wax reissue, Mental Groove are (just quietly) shaping up to be one of the truly great labels.

Mental Groove / MG.LTD.016
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[Peter Chambers]

What a relentless track: it’s like your head is being run through a sewing machine, the synths needling away at every frequency range while the midtempo kick thumps along obliviously. Beyond the rhythm, Water Lilly keeps the pitches at really tense intervals, uninterested in resolving them until she breaks into the main riff, which is a lonely bit you might have expected on the last Knife album. If it went longer than 7:25 I’d say enough already, but that’s exactly where it stops, an etude in tension/release.

Arnaud Rebotini’s Black Strobe Mix on the flip is, as you’d expect, a harder, darker, “slamming” take on the original, something that’d fit perfectly into electroclash sets and current distorted-to-death bloghouse outings. It’s also the first time you’ll be able to make out the vocals from the original - “Except for me, what else do you want?” - which are presented here as a centerpiece, something of a meta-thesis for the rest of the mix. Rebotini bests the original when he moves into a sub-bass acid freakout towards the middle, and never lets up.

Mental Groove Records / MG 057
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[Nick Sylvester]

Another day, another glitch-house track. I remember hearing “Hotflash!” on that Jesse Rose mix for Get Physical last year and wondering, for the first time maybe ever: Whatever happened to Akufen? I really used to like glitch, in no small part because I needed something like “the sampladelic nature of glitch-house” to combat my intense worry that dance was stupid and vain, that I was just wasting my time. Ironies abound but here we are: Berlin’s Oliver $ (pronounced, I think, “Oliver Dollar”) know well enough to keep the beat relatively steady and let the crazy microsamples flutter in and out unintrusively, but when he grooves for a few seconds on a hiccup of filterhouse, I suddenly remember how infuriating glitch can get. I want that hiccup to last forever, a hiccup that comprises the best moment on the whole twelve-inch, but Oliver’s already moved on. I got glitched!

Grand Petrol / GP 016
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[Nick Sylvester]

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Daso Franke? Well, yes, I believe I have, actually. His music has all the swelling space and moody flourishes associated with that overused term (I’m guilty too) “ambient,” but damn if it doesn’t move as well. Back again with another solid three-tracker, Daso serves up a great creepy-crawly thumper in standout “Thujon” on the A-side. Eeky insectoid noises devouring your spine while an irresistible beefy pulse works your legs? I’m in.

“Louche” starts the flipside off in very tasteful form. In fact it might be a bit too tasteful, and though undoubtedly warm, it’s also a shade too Spartan to really liven up the legs or tickle the ears. Those lovely noises come back into it with the spacious, gorgeous “La Fee Verte,” which ends the EP. More of a texture than a melody or a beat, it’s nonetheless exactly the kind of track that seems to scrape out your ears with a spoon, leaving you supple for the next breath of wind to come and sweep you along. Tasty and refined. Make more tracks now, please.

Connaisseur Recordings / cns 013-6
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

Chromeo’s music makes for appealing remix material thanks to its elasticity and simple lushness. It’s one-third rollerscootin’ boogie, one-third spazzy electropop, one-third bedroom production job (in both senses of the word), but the clean lines and bouncy pads of their tracks make for bendtastic bliss in the right hands.

The original “Fancy Footwork” is an up-tempo spank-n-shimmy jam in the mold of “Needy Girl,” though a bit more busy and cluttered with wonderfully corny special effects like the single chiming note timed to match Dave 1’s exhaled “ah.” That original is far in the distance on these three takes, however. Glossy wobblectro is on the menu for the remix by Turbo in-house artist D.I.M, who makes pouty faces at the original like a funky glitch bandit with a trunk full of French filter records. I’ve yet to meet the dancefloor I’d want to punish with the charmingly-chaotic results, but I’m sure they’re out there.

Thomas Barfod (Tomboy) mangles all the sheen out of the original for a squelchy, stripped-down take that improbably combines minimal and acidic touches with his own disco-dub style, yet retains room for a weird Beyonce-in-Step-class breakdown in the middle. For the last take, Surkin adds a riotous crime-scene sample and then whips up mere milliseconds of the original (and what sounds like a sped-up bite from “Needy Girl”) into a rave-o-licious breakbeat frenzy. An odd batch for an odd bunch.

Turbo / TURBO-038
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

It still seems so easy to write off International Deejay Gigolos, even if it’s now a full five years or so since the death of electroclash. Their rampant release schedule and terminally hit-or-miss CD compilations have never done them any favors, and I would actually agree with naysayers who claim that their M.O of sleazy rave, electro-techno, and acid works better in theory than in abundant practice. Yet looking back over the last three years, I’m surprised how many quality tracks they’ve been a part of, from the DJ Hell remixes by Dominik Eulberg and Superpitcher, the Psychonauts “World Keeps Turning,” Abe Duque’s album, and Johnny Dangerous’ fantastic “King of Clubs,” to great recent sides from Terrence Fixmer and Kevin Gorman.

And here we are again, with another massive release: DJ Hell’s perfect update of Phobia’s (aka Pink Elln) self-titled proto-trance cut from 1991. Pretty much all the elements that made the original such a smash are here: an eerie two-note drone acting as a depth charge, a slightly melancholic diva wail, and a spoken voice intoning “let me have silence.” DJ Hell just seems to fill in the blanks in making it sound contemporary, basically giving it a sleeker drum kit and some reserved acid lines; the source material does the rest of the heavy lifting effortlessly. On the flip side is the “Silence Mix,” a co-production between Pink Elln and Atom Heart, which uses the two-note drone as the basis for a frigid piece of ambience that threatens but never quite makes it way into something comfortable (a good thing). It’s actually a little hard to believe “Phobia” is over 15 years old, as this single makes so much sense, and sounds so vital.

International Deejay Gigolos / GIGOLO 213
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[Michael F. Gill]

Peter Chambers: Lopazz has always positioned himself (or been positioned) between the airbrush-smooth electro-house that Get Physical mastered (and transcended) and its others: Trevor Jackson’s cool-hunting Output inprint, and the spectre of Playhouse, first with the Villalobos remix of “Migracion,” and now the inclusion of an Isolée remix.

There’s always a danger to having a gifted freak remix your work, even if you are one yourself (witness Villalobos’ showing Beck up on the stellar “Information” remixes). “Share My Rhythm” is a case in point. The original version is a lovely, sparkling electro-disco-house number with that “greet the sunshine” vibe that Metro Area or Danny Wang managed to infuse their tracks with. You listen to it, you don’t think you’re missing out on much: “This will do nicely,” I thought. Then I heard the Isolée remix… It’s just like the original, but all the frequencies are stuffed full of that magical squawk, fuzz, and grit that he seems to have an inexhaustible supply of. Every sound has been lovingly treated in such a way as to bring out both its personality and Isolée’s (sigh). I’m gushing, I know. It’s unbecoming. “Gimme Gimme,” the B, is another serviceable track in the same sound-vein. Again, it’s tidily produced and sounds nice, but after hearing the Isolée mix, it sounds like a thin approximation of something far richer, deeper and more interesting.

Mallory O’Donnell: While it might be tough to pin down the Lopazz sound, it’s oh-so-easy to enjoy. “Share My Rhythm” is no exception to this, boasting a starry, sparkling melody coupled with a stiff tech-house beat and warm, swirling pads. It plays a perfect middleman to introspective and deep-house styles, having a bit of the best of both worlds to offer, with none of the genre-inclusive traits that tend to drag. Isolée turns in a typically fine remix, drawing out the bassline and dubbing up the accents blacker than dread. It’s definitely a chilly take, but one that’s refreshing, like a skinny dip in Autumn waters, rather than the numbed-senses bath of the minimal icebox. B-side “Gimme Gimme” ups the thunkability quotient considerably yet retains the sensuous elan of the title track. A complex, well-rounded EP from an artist who we’ll continue to expect big things from.

Get Physical / GPM 064
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