LJ Kruzer: Manhood & Electronics Remixes
Uncharted Audio

Cursor Miner: Shakin' Heathens / Mad Cow
Uncharted Audio

Two tracks from LJ Kruzer's acclaimed sophomore collection Manhood & Electronics get the remix treatment courtesy of four hand-picked producers. Naturally, part of the fun the release offers is comparing the different approaches the remixers apply to their common tunes. The Village Orchestra (aka Glasgow-based Ruaridh Law, also a Marcia Blaine School For Girls member) brings its customary panoramic sensibility to its treatment of “Tam.” The track's nine-minute length accommodates Law's propensity for metamorphosis and, in characteristic TVO form, the piece develops from its ambient atmospheric beginnings into a driving cut that's equal parts thumping dub-techno number and percolating club anthem. Consistent with Law's episodic bent, the beats drop out halfway through, suggesting that the piece will gravitate in an ambient direction, but then, surprisingly, rhythms re-enter, this time in the form of house-inflected breakbeats that Law lightly sprays with an acid hose. Trademark, a collaborative venture involving Tony Reeves (one-half of Forces of Nature) and Loki, gives “Tam” a swift and unfussy groove-centric treatment that's as clubby as all get out. Jacking and jaunty, the track works up a goodly amount of froth as it digs into its 4/4 pulse with élan and abandon. The approach Finland producer Ukkonen brings to the EP's second original, “Poil,” sounds very much like the kind of thing one would expect from someone whose material will soon be issued on Rednetic: electronic dance music that merges beats rooted in tech-house with crisp electronic scene-painting. The Cyan341 “Poil” makeover comes from another Rednetic associate, London-based producer Mark Streatfield, whose gyroscopic treatment sends the track to a trippy zone where burbling bass rumble and joyous tech-house swing abound.

Cursor Miner's twelve-inch features two barn-burning ravers from Rob Tubb, whose thismansadventure EP inaugurated Kone-R's Uncharted Audio all those years ago. The A-side's “Shakin' Heathens” serves up seven unstoppable minutes of blazing broil, jacking techno-funk jams, and subterranean bass slither. As the track unfolds, the bass, a viral creature of seething swarm, swells to elephantine proportions as it all but threatens to swallow the tune's insistent treble patterns with cavernous rumble. “Shakin' Heathens” is a booty-shaker in the extreme and all the better for being so. Tubb rolls out even bigger beats for “Mad Cow,” a seven-minute colossus powered by a massive snare-kick drum attack when not being waylaid by cowbell tomfoolery and distorted bass thunder. Endearingly twisted, the throwdown's anything but po-faced in its cheeky fusion of dubstep gloom, cut-up beat programming, and deranged club-funk moves.

April 2010