I once read an interview where one of the In Flagranti dudes said he spends literally as much time as possible rooting through old junk at flea markets, thrift stores, and the like. It shows in all the ancient porn they use for their sleeves, and the vintage disco samples that so many of their singles are based around. Vocalist G. Rizo teams back up with the duo for “Intergalactic Bubblegum,” and she channels ESG ca. 3000 for her elastic, sci-fi raps. Based around Amii Stewart’s “Knock On Wood,” the sticky-sweet, bass-infused beat shuffles hard, with phasers at full blast. Chunks of broken robotic drums plunge from the sky, while ascending oscillations of synth carry her into orbit like a Cylon hooker on a mission to fuck.

The remaining two tracks carry the astronautical theme but aren’t quite as successful, seemingly directed more towards the bulky robots from ‘50s b-movies than the sexy, sleek replicants of the future. “EFX 10-11″ is an icy-cool raver whose bleeps, bloops, and hand-claps groove is too affected by its many starts and stops to really gain momentum. It also has what sounds like samples from an old-school instructional record, which I have a very low tolerance for after years of abuse by inferior DJs and producers. B-side “Bipolar” is a rather unremarkable exercise in Kraftwerk-styled italo synth grooves, and while it carries on for seven minutes, it leaves as smoothly and airily as it arrives. Stick to the title track (pun intended) and let’s hope In Flagranti have some more grooves and better b-sides planned for the year.

Codek / CRE 012
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[Peter Lansky]

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]

A lot of people might say that the remix is nothing new—and in a sense, they’re right. But what is new is the emphasis, and the excitement. Where in the “old days” a remix was a way of disco-nizing a pop hit or letting the studio heads show off their skills, these days, the remixes are often not only more anticipated (and fascinating when they do drop), but also a way of establishing connections between talented artists, and showing the points of condensation and digression among and between various mutations of music. Hot Chip (and the Knife, with less success) have grasped this shift in the logic of (re) release and presentation, driving completists mad with a vast array of remixes, many of which are offered with multiple colours on the cover art. Junior Boys were always the third in the holy trinity of highly rated electro-pop releases last year, but unlike the Knife and the ‘Chip, this is only the Boys second remix EP, after 2006 gave us Smoke’s beautifully calming mix of “In the Morning” and Morgan Geist’s disappointing crack at “The Equalizer.” But here—wow, talk about big guns… oh no, did somebody say zeitgeist again?! Carl Craig, Kode 9, and Hot Chip all on the one piece of wax. So? What’s it like, you ask?

Well, fantastic, in a word. Fantastic, with a big “but” (I’ll get to that). Hot Chip pull out all the stops here for a typically heart-strings yanking electro-pop anthem, adding (as they often do on their remixes) their own new lyrics over the top. The vocal harmonies of the original become a background choir, and in the front is a big, fat, and warm rave synth that drives the mix along. Like their wonderful version of Steve Malkmus’ “Kindling for the Master,” the group manages to not only add, subtract, or re-arrange, but to multiply the songs melodic elements into something wonderful, touching, and entirely new. Marsen Jules’ pop-ambient offering (for obvious reasons the least in-your-face of the bunch) is likewise a transformative effort that brings the original’s vocals close to some of the work on Panda Bear’s great new album Person Pitch, with its own heart-on-sleeve remembrance of beaches and boys of yore.

Carl Craig’s re-work reduces in order to enlarge (for the big room), turning “Like a Child” into “Like a Bad Weekend.” It’s too easy a criticism to say “it’s too long,” but there’s something not “un” but undersatisfying about the track here. It’s definitely Carl Craig, but by the book, if not by numbers. There’s no button being pushed here that hasn’t been pushed better, harder, and more passionately elsewhere. Kode 9’s mix here brings us back to the grimy, alien/zombie-filled landscape of the dubstep imagination. No doubt Hardwax thinks this is the best mix (and it is neat) but it’s a whole lotta Kode 9 and very little of the Junior Boys—is there any overlap between the black, paranoid, science-fiction imagination of Kode 9 and the white, floppy-boy romantic snow-borne sorrows of Junior Boys? That would be a negative. Ten Snake’s mix goes for a spacey/italo/electro rendition, which jars with the other offerings here, though it does have its own discrete charms.

The big “but” after this long description is that, with the possible exception of Hot Chip, none of these admirable mixes comes close to the aching beauty of the original tracks. I finished listening to all these tracks…and I just wanted to hear the album again.

Domino / RUG251T2
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[Peter Chambers]

Curiouser and curiouser. It never ceases to amaze me how t(r)endencies in dance music collide, mutate, and spawn new monsters. If one of the key refrains of producers (against music journalists) is that we keep on pigeonholing them against their will, then the reply should be a demand for some sympathy—how else are we to get a handle on all this flux? This EP is so thoroughly under the influences that it staggers—there’s crunk, hip-hop, house (bouncy French, disco, micro, electro, whore), plus nods to rave, all packaged with lashings of snappy pop.

First listen reminded me of my mother, telling me that Big Black was “headache music.” I didn’t think Songs About Fucking was, but this EP is colorful like a mouthful of gummies, high like your surging blood sugar, and sickly like your stomach after the binge is over. The original has got the cut, paste, and bounce of Akufen’s old classics like “Deck the House” and “Quebec Nightclub.” The problem with the track (to these ears at least) is the minor-key string sample over the top of the mix, which abrades the party below.

Riton’s mix is the übermanic wedding of the original’s housey parts to full-bore synth-electro madness. Like Alter Ego’s remix of Partial Arts a few months back, if the kids in your club don’t dance to this, they’re dead. That’s not a threat, it’s a medical fact. The “Drowning” mix by Surkin continues with the cut and spazz, but this time is matched with sirens, rave atmospheres and big-room house ass. Headache music! (Dear god, I’m turning into my mother.) Finally, Beckett and Taylor take their hands off the plow long enough to outclass their fellows with a mix that sounds surprisingly adult and sophisticated by comparison, while still keeping things well hectic.

It feels odd to praise an EP I have difficulty listening to from start to finish, but this is exemplary, and if you’re a “working gal” (in the DJ sense) this is a warhorse for the whore-house.

Naive France / Institubes / NV 809166/ INS 12017
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[Peter Chambers]

Similar to his first single on Belgium’s Dirty Dancing, “Redemption” sees Garcet working a heavy motorik beat with a consistent bassline on every 8th note, finding a common ground between Tussle’s minimal lockgrooves and early My Best Friend records like Toro’s “Phantom Drive.” With some soft-focus guitar melodies and snips of aching falsetto, Garcet is able to keep thing interesting while never diverting from the initial metronomic groove.

Fans of neo-italo duo the Revolving Eyes will find no stylistic surprises on their remix: they shift the monophonic chug into an arpeggiated hi-nrg rush, heightening the tension and creating a bit more heat for the dancefloor. Mister J, the other remixer here, could have had an electro-house hit on his hands if his production chops were more up to snuff. As it stands, he’s a little more than one well-programmed kick drum away from greatness.

Dirty Dancing / DDR 015
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[Michael F. Gill]

Joakim’s latest for the French label Versatile combines a nicely hummable tune with some elegant and funky padding in three mixes plus an acapella. The extended remix by The Loving Hand (aka Tim from the DFA) is nice to bop along with but is ultimately conflicted with too many ideas: deep house, acid, or electro, please make up your mind! But this is well worth picking up for the Radio Edit and Dub mixes, which keep the chunky, early-80’s vibe intact and turn up the melancholic, yearning vocals. The Radio Edit is a rock-solid pop tune with post-punk trappings, while the Dub version is actually a dub mix for once, instead of a merely gussied-up instrumental. It sounds just perfect for a hastily-planned, sweaty basement party in Paris, or wherever you happen to be this weekend.

Versatile / VER051
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

In lieu of getting this album on vinyl, the “does what it says on the tin” four-tracker here will serve well enough for now. However, as I noted here, Seriøs is basically an album of mixing tools with personality. Which means we want the whole thing. On wax. The “extended” versions of “Something,” “Swan,” and “Baffioso” presented here are more or less the same as on the album, only with padded-out intros and outros for smoove mixing action. “Something” is the disco-house instrumental, a solid mid-tempo groove with some nice chunky drums; “Swan” more of a pop track that belongs on the car mixtape rather than the dancefloor; “Baffioso” being one of Barfod’s more aggressive and techy slapfests, perfect for the nuovo Italo and electro crowd. A dub version of standout track “Synchronize” rounds out the sampler, though the use of the term “dub” for it is somewhat debatable here.

Gomma / Gomma 089
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

The bassline, which hammers on every couple bars and I guess is supposed to be funky, isn’t so great, but otherwise this Soulwax Nite Versions-type electro grinder has a lot of forward driving motion. If it ends up a transition track for the indie-dance set, so be it. The pulsing rootnote synths, pushed way back and moving up ever so slowly, have a lot to do with the propulsion, so do the acidic accents, no surprise then that both Blitz Gramsci and Mock & Toof refocus their remixes there. BG moves the pulse centerstage and doubles it up so it rumbles italo-style, while Mock & Toof hollow out the track’s midsection to make room for atonal leftfield electro-type embellishments.

Supersoul Recordings / SSREC002
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[Nick Sylvester]

Was this inspired by March of the Penguins? I hope so, because I really like my read: Like March humanized the flightless birds to now parodied degrees (cf. Bob Saget’s latest Farce), “The Penguin” redeems countless hopeless/loveless/escapist/truly awful lyrics via penguinization: Sometimes “I wish I could fly away” is just “I wish I could fly away”; sometimes “waiting for the light to change” is not just the stuff of late-night high-school instant messaging. What I’m trying to say is that if you imagine this song being sung by a penguin, it’s pretty great. Otherwise it’s merely a good Maxi Priest mockup (”I just wanna be close to yoooouuuu”) with better-than-average bedroom dance-pop synths and drum sounds, and way better-than-average mixing and programming. There’s a steel-drumlike synth arpeggio that pops up every now and then and it’s just gorgeous. On the backside, DFA’s Tim Goldsworthy makes his solo remixing debut as the Loving Hand. To most it’ll just sound like a flightier DFA remix, much like the Unkle “In a State” one or the Chemical Brothers’ “The Boxer,” but keen ears will notice that the drum kicks are softer, and the background mix is extremely dense, with layers of soft ambient textures tickled by competing skitters of synth. It builds well and isn’t afraid to break down for the verse and build back up again. Really quiet, really confident.

Defend Music / DFN 80015
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[Nick Sylvester]

For what seems eons now, the Cult of Italo has been scattered across the Earth, small cells of patient worshippers eking out what existence they could from dusty bins and eBay auctions, while the motherland continued with its gauche betrayal of the scriptural imperative laid down by their forerunners in cold black wax, serving up slabs of tepid pop-house instead. Milan’s Love Supreme try to address that grievance within the span a single 12″ (which, it should be wryly noted, has emerged on a UK label). They come pretty damn close. Side A is the New Testament—”Rocquet,” a slithering spaceship paean to all things electrofied, with bits of ethereal static clinging to it like cosmic plankton. It quickly leaves the earth in its wake—a remix by Lindstrom or the DFA would probably shoot your ass into the stratosphere. Side B brings the Old Testament fire with the absurdly named “Pork Chop Express,” a hammering roots-disco workout with stirring flashes of analog electronics and inspired, organic percussion sounds.

Tirk / Tirk 020
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[Mallory O’Donnell]