It's been a while since I've written a review or article for a music release that I've deep down actually enjoyed. Let's just say I was struggling with university and I had a lot of work to do – but this was not the main reason for my absence. In fact, I struggled more with musical genres and my own taste in music than I did with burying my head in a textbook. It became clearer and clearer that my taste grew into the deeper and technoid facets of electronic music (with the note that there will never be enough acid for me) instead of the electro "stuff" I came to write about in the past. So I took my time off to delve into this new sound and style and waited for a release that could make a nice transition and mark a new beginning.
What release could be a better fit for the job than the recently released remix EP of Barker & Baumecker's Transsektoral LP which is really the first real techno release I've felt compelled to write a review for. Of course it goes by way of Ostgut Ton – the record label of Berlin's famous club Berghain. The EP features an enormous variety of remixes produced by an amazing pack of musicians.
The first remix comes from none else than Machinedrum who had great success last year together with Jimmy Edgar and their collaboration project JETS. The track manages it to mesmerize you just with the use of the original vocal sample in "No Body". Combined with its straight forward housey bass and percussion setup on the one hand with the trippy synthesizer bleeping in the other, the track is the most versatile on the record and can be played at any time in the club.
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The intense track "Silo" got an even more intense remix by the Berlin-based newcomer Kobosil. The mysterious producer is already in the business for quite a long time but has never released anything before. He has a lot of connections within the scene and gathered a lot of experience over the years. And it definitely shows up as one of the reasons why his remix has such a high quality. A floating pattern of white noise and intoxicating drum lines make it a stomping techno anthem.
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Kobosil already got a shout out for his remix by Blawan who emerged as one of the main protagonists in the techno business and is also responsible for the B1 side of the EP – a reshape of the track "Crows". The original track shines with its madness in the high frequency region. Blawan turns the table and creates a monument of bass touched by warm vocal-like chords but of course Mr. Roberts did not let us go that easy. The track takes a whole new direction after the first half – it overtakes more and more samples of the original and evolves naturally into a different kind of madness.
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Lastly, there is the remix of "Schlang Bang" by Third Side to close which is a collaboration of Steffi and The Analogue Cops. What you get is of course what you would have expected by two (three) legends of house-influenced techno music. A bouncy club tune perfectly made for the dance floor – playfully using the samples of what might be the most-played track off the Transsektoral LP.
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