30Hz: Re-herded
Lot49

Re-herded could make a DJ's life about as easy as it could possibly be: slip the disc in, press Play, and stand back and watch the music work its club magic on the delirious hordes. The twelve-track follow-up to 2007's Electric Sheep full-length mixes new cuts with choice makeovers of the original album by Pinch, Alex Metric, Lee Coombs, Magik Johnson, and others. As far as remix releases goes, this one's high-octane attack places it in the upper echelon.

30Hz wastes no time setting the bar high by having the “Crazy” original leap from the gate with a brash, pumping pulse, a chopped “drives me crazy” refrain, and all manner of grinding riffage. The tune gets an immediate re-rub from Samuel H Simpson that discards the vocals and fabulously exploits the song's house potential by punctuating beats that're equally slinky and slippery with buckshot handclaps and surging chords. 30Hz then re-visits the album's title track for a tight, groove-centric extended version, and in so doing cattle-prods the listener who missed out the first time around to right that wrong. Far Too Loud's epic electro-house shredding of “Innocent” gets a huge boost from the presence of Yolanda who royally tore it up on Pinch's Underwater Dancehall and does the same here. Far Too Loud rises to the occasion with a blistering deconstruction that's just as head-spinning (a superfluous dub mix of the song closes out the release). Yolanda also spreads her vocal love over two “Daddio” treatments, the first a wild electro burner by Miles Dyson and the second a grooving acid-house banger where Trevor Loveys ups the delirium ante with some deftly-executed vocal splicing. Tectonic associate Pinch performs meticulous surgery on “Mutated” and thereby turns the original into a bass-heavy mover that could just as easily bear the Pinch name as 30Hz.

September 2008