Corrugated Tunnel: Transist
Process Recordings

Transist lifts the closing track from Edwin James Cummins's third Corrugated Tunnel full-length Minor Obsessions and lets three Irish remixers loose upon it. The sparkling original certainly provides Donnacha Costello, Chymera (Brendon Gregoriy), and Mark O'Sullivan with solid raw material to work with. Cummins's original album version blossoms in its opening minutes with kaleidoscopic flourishes of radiant colour before a chugging bass line, snares, and hi-hats add house-infected rhythmic drive. The tune cartwheels jubilantly for six minutes as it moves through multiple key modulations and navigates numerous peaks and valleys.

Acclaimed producer Costello recasts the original as a shimmering sunburst of blinding acid-house that swings with deep house fever (though why he thought the background needed to be clotted with garbled voices is anyone's guess). Chymera first brings in a stripped-down warehouse vibe before slowly reshaping it into a slow-burning club raver; Gregoriy shows himself to be a deft handler of tension-and-release as he repeatedly builds the track up and then draws it down again during the track's eight-minute ride. Calling his version a “Bliss Mix” isn't far off the mark, as O'Sullivan's treatment turns the original into the most phanstasmagoric of the three remixes. In O'Sullivan's makeover, a vocal sample ups the deep house quotient, and rollicking beats give the tune's sparkle additional drive and heft. The EP finds Cummins's solid original benefiting from contributors who dedicatedly strive to lift it higher.

March 2011