The Remix: Cleaner - The Voice (And One Re-Interpretation)

So, it looks like the logic board on my computer is blown, which means that it's generally about as reliable as the narrator in a Gene Wolf novel. I bring this up for two reasons, firstly to explain the lack of updates and second to bring up a semi-obscure science fiction reference as a segue into today's particular remix selection. Cleaner was originally called Cleen, and was comprised of two dudes, Thorsten Meier and Daniel Myer of haujobb fame. They produced a classic EP (Designed Memories) and a pretty good album (Second Path), both in a atmospheric EBM style. Around 2000 Meier left the group, leaving the other phonetically identical but differently spelled Myer as the sole concern in the group. It should probably be noted that Myer had about 50 projects on the go at the time, but rather than doing the sensible thing and just letting it go, Daniel changed the name of the project to Cleaner and recorded Solaris for Accession records, which was ostensibly a tribute to the classic EBM of the eighties and his favorite science fiction novels and films. It was, uh, largely not all that interesting. I daresay someone at Metropolis felt the same way, because when the album came out in North America it had two club remixes of The Voice (a song previously released as single) tagged on to the end. The first mix by Beborn Beton was alright, but it's the "Re-Interpretation" by And One that's most memorable. Much like they did with their classic take on Project Pitchfork's Timekiller, And One basically jettisoned most of the original track and re-recorded it, including having their vocalist sing the lyrics. It features a nice arpegiated bassline reminiscent of FLA's Caustic Grip era, appropriate considering Myer namedrops that album in particular in Solaris' liner notes. Oddly enough said bassline is the only moment when you listen to the CD that stands out as being particularly in the style of classic EBM/Electro-Industrial which as you'll recall was kind of supposed to be the musical theme of the record. At any rate, Myer would go on to rename the band yet again as Clear Vision, would release a pretty good album (Deception) and then quietly retire the project.

Cleaner - The Voice (And One Re-Interpretation)

ae-sthetics

Goin' to check out IDM patron saints Autechre tonight, which is exciting. Last time I saw them (in 2005 I think) they put on a mammoth show, distinct from everything I've ever seen in their deliberate lack of any kind of stage presence. Seriously, they don't even have lights on, they walk out on stage and start fucking around with their gear bathed in the soft glow of lcd screens. It's a tacit admission that more often than not electronic music is not performed in the same fashion as other musics, and throws into sharp contrast the band's lack of concession to the traditional expectations for a concert. Whereas contemporaries like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher will make a point of slyly winking at and deconstructing those traditions, Autechre have always seemed more intent on ignoring them altogether. It's something you can see reflected in their obtuse song titles, their abstract visual aesthetics and best of all in their live sonic representation. The band doesn't perform tracks from their albums, moreso they build whole sets of live music using the same sorts of algorhythms and happy accidents that define their studio works. I don't expect to hear any of the "songs" from their recent (and very enjoyable) Quaristice, I expect to hear some variations and inversions of it's sonic motifs. And while it may not give me much to look at, it sure as hell promises to give me something to sink my teeth into and ultimately digest. And in a world of self-conscious rock antics and earnest but incredibly boring soul bearing, it'll be nice to hear something meant to be taken on a purely cerebral level. Intelligent Dance Music indeed.

Autechre - Inhake 2 (Peel Session '95)


Autechre - Second Bad Vibel

The Record Swap and the Things I Got There

So, hungover and severely underslept I managed to drag my sorry carcass out of bed and down to Vancouver's Annual Record Swap. I think the term "swap" is largely traditional at this point, as in my experience the only thing being swapped for records is cash money. I'm normally not to good at these things, mostly because I'm not a collector. The moment a dude starts talking about japanese reissues and rare pressings my eyes glaze over and I start mentally recounting the plots of old Doom Patrol comics. That, and the fact that despite having a voracious appetite for music I don't really buy a lot of vinyl, and these sorts of things are geared towards people who fetishize the stuff. I mean to say, I was born in the seventies, I grew up with LPs but shit dude, if it comes down to it I don't really care about format all that much. I like to have a physical object rather than just a file (if only so I have a backup in case of hard drive failure) and CDs are more convenient for me in that regard. In any case, I halfheartedly leafed through a few crates of stuff labeled "eighties and nineties", was tempted to purchase a nice copy of Momus' Tender Pervert (which I really should write about at some point) but generally came up empty. Eventually whilst clawing through a crate marked "80s Indie" I found a copy of Coil's Anal Staircase 12" which has a version of the track on it I'm not sure has appeared on CD ever. It was a decent price so I went for it. Plus, the cover art (pictured above) was kind of cool. Much less cool was another seller who was trying to hawk a copy of the bands debut album Scatology for $80, which is overpriced even if it were in good shape, which it wasn't.

I eventually found my way over to a table where a dude was selling mass quantities of CDs for $5 a pop. A lot of garbage, but a few treasures. Firstly a copy of Celebration's debut LP which Bruce has always had nice things to say about. Secondly, one of Off Beat's ol' Tyranny Off the Beat comps, which are great fun if you're a fan of forgotten mid-nineties EBM and Electro. This particular volume has a neat version of Velvet Acid Christ's Star Trek sampling Futile, a track which he would later update for his Fun With Knives album. But the real find was an original Wax Trax pressing of KMFDM's Naïve. For those that don't know, the album was deleted in the early nineties due to an uncleared sample of Orf's Carmina Burana (you know, that one bit that is the basis for Apotheosis' O Fortuna, a song I could happily never hear again) on the track Liebeslied. The album was reissued eventually with the offending samples removed, but the original pressing has gone on to become something of a collector's item, fetching high prices on ebay. So yeah, a productive and worthwhile trip to the record swap, although I didn't get to have my picture taken with Chad Allan of the Guess Who. More's the pity.

KMFDM - Liebesleid


Velvet Acid Christ - Futile (LSD mix)

Another Shiver Down My Spine

I figured what with a new Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds record on the horizon, It'd be appropriate to break out a classic by an early incarnation of Cave's pre-Bad Seeds group The Birthday Party. Before moving to London in the early eighties, the group played and recorded in their native Australia as The Boys Next Door in fact many of the early Birthday Party records like Hee Haw were originally released under the name. Oddly enough Shivers is much more in line with the Bad Seeds's late eighties dirges than anything the Birthday Party would ever record. Great track, the first time I heard it was as a recurring motif in Aussie flick Dogs in Space, a great movie mostly known for starring Michael Hutchence.



And hey, a cursory search of youtube yields a video even!

The Remix: The Presets - This Boy's In Love (Lifelike Remix)

Y'know, normally I wouldn't bother posting a track that is burning up the Hype Machine (which you all check for music daily, don't deny it), but fuck it. The death rattle of my credibility as a music blogger will be drowned out by this amazing Presets remix by Lifelike. A track from the band's eagerly anticipated sophmore album Apocalypso, This Boy's in Love is a sweet track in a kinda synthpop electro style. But something about the way Lifelike leaves the vocals kind of naked and at the forefront on this version just gets me, the track ends up sounding like the lovechild of DMX Krew's 17 Ways to Break my Heart and Camouflage's The Great Commandment, which is to say fucking great. Enjoy. Apocalypso is out April12 in their native Australia, May 13th in North America, I am anticipating it gleefully.

V for Victory not Vendetta

Thanks to the efforts of the good folks at my preferred online music retailer, I've now got the EP of music recorded by David J of Bauhaus and Love & Rockets fame for Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta. Those of you who have read the comic may remember the chapter told in song (with musical notation) This Vicious Cabaret, provided for your listening pleasure below. It's funny, when I saw the V movie a few years back I remember thinking it was mediocre but not awful. I think in the time since I've kind of grown to hate it. For one thing it strips away any of the real questions and complexities of the story and leaves you the kind of message that only Hollywood could consider political, essentially that "Fascism is bad". Yeah, way to take a stand there guys. At any rate, Alan Moore said it best : "[The movie] has been "turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country… It's a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives—which is not what the comic V for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England."

All that aside, this is a really cool little track. I always forget that David had some neat solo material, maybe sometime I'll post one of his oddball spoken word/ambient pieces, if and when I find the cd in my damn collection.

David J - This Vicious Cabaret

The Remix: Das Ich 'Destillat'

Most of you who were frequenting EBM/Industrial nights just before the turn of the century probably recall Das Ich's 'Destillat', or at least the ultra popular VNV Nation remix. Not unlike Suicide Commando's 'Hellraiser', the chances of hearing the original or alternate mixes were pretty slim. After all this was all going down at the height of Ronan-mania, when DJs were looking for even more ways to cram some of that sweet VNV sound into their sets (and consequently dancers on the floor). I've always preferred the 'Club' remix of the track myself, and was pleased to see that Das Ich's new odds n' ends collection Addendum. It's the addition of the female vocals and the guitar sounding synth on the chorus that do it for me I think. Check this mix out and tell me it's not better than the VNV one. Seriously. Also, were the last two Das Ich records that came out on Metropolis any good? I kinda stopped paying attention after 'Anti'Christ'.

Das Ich - Destillat (Extended Club Mix)

And hey, there's even a video apparently!

Lynx and DAMN!

Is there anything more disheartening to a music geek than feeling hideously out of touch? That's how I felt when I discovered Sublight signees Lynx and Ram. Not only is it the kind of new school punky-electro I feel like I should have been up on, they're a local Vancouver act. So you know, I feel like an idiot for not knowing about them. At any rate, their debut record The System's On And It's Flashing Red came out a few weeks ago, and features a sound somewhere in the neighbourhood of recent Adult., with the seduction turned way the hell up and the drums set to 'spastic'. Some tracks like the sublime 'Our Bodies are Real' would only need slight punching up in remix form for them to really work in a club setting. Seriously, considering how unimpressive 2007 has been so far, this might be my favorite new act to put out a record. You can order it direct from Sublight. Updates if I get to see them live, which isn't that much of a stretch is it? I'm still with it!

Lynx and Ram "Our Bodies are Real"

Lynx and Ram @ Myspace

Also, peep the tunes by member Julian Fane, who apparently has a record of IDM/Shoegaze coming out on Planet Mu.

No More "Suicide Commando"

The signature track from otherwise unremarkable No/Wave Post Punk act No More, 'Suicide Commando' is one of those odd songs which is more remarkable for the breadth of its influence than its own qualities. Like a more immediate and engaging version of Kraftwerk's 'Hall of Mirrors', its repetitive keyboard line, cheap reverbed drum machine and unemotive vocals are a prototype for countless DIY electro and ebm tracks (not to mention giving fellow Belgian Johann Van Roy a name to work with), the likes of which are still coming out every day. Despite apparently refusing to perform it for a portion of the career, it seems that No More have now embraced the song recently releasing a 2-CD career retrospective entitled Remake/Remodel on which one whole CD is given over to covers and remixes of it. Unfortunately not included on the album is the excellent version by Vitalic, which we have provided below for your listening pleasure.

No More - Suicide Commando
Vitalic - Suicide Commando

Link: Suicide Commando der Song

A Split Second - Flesh

First released on 12" in 1986 on Antler records (prior to that label's merger with Subway to form the imaginatively named Antler-Subway) 'Flesh' was the debut release from belgian duo A Split-Second. The track itself is a tasty slice of old school EBM, it's ultra-recognizable hook, pounding 4/4 drum beat and spoken vocals creating a sound comparable to more well-known contemporaries like the Klinik and Front 242 and paving the way for later acts like Bigod 20. However the most notable influence it would have would be in allegedly accidentally creating the mostly forgotten but highly influential genre of New Beat. According to legend (and Wikipedia), DJ Marc Grouls played the 45 rpm 12 inch at 33 rpms. Apparently the sound created by the slower heavier beats was like catnip to Belgian club goers and before long various acts (frequent;y the same people using different names) were churning out an endless string of sluggish electronic jams. Most notably, the musical trend would give birth to the Lords of Acid when producers Praga Khan, Jade 4 U and Oliver Adams teamed up to create their now trademark sex and acid jams. 'Flesh' itself was remixed and rereleased at a slower BPM, presumably so the record buying public could get ahold of the song in the form it was most well known in. This New Beat mix would become the most recognizable version of the song. The New Beat movement itself thrived briefly before its adherents and artists, perhaps intrigued by the sounds coming out of detroit and the UK moved on to other genres like techno, acid house and NRG, relegating the short-lived genre to footnote status in the history of electronic music. 'Flesh' itself however would show up again in the form of numerous remixes that would port it over to other contemporary forms of electronic dance music. A raved up remix by Koen Tillie would appear on A Split-Second's 1991 remix album Flesh & Fire and Paul 'Perfecto' Oakenfold would release a Trance version in 2001*. Concurrently, A Split Second founding member Chrismar Chayell released another remix album called Transmix which featured a track labeled 'Flesh (Jungle)'**.

A Split Second - Flesh
A Split Second - Flesh (New Beat Remix)
A Split Second - Flesh (Koen Tillie Mix)

*If anyone knows where I can hear even a sample of this version hit me up with a link.
**I don't know whether this refers to the genre of music or is just the name of the mix.