Words Floating Up And Then Away . . .

Title: Stay Out All Night
Artist: Josh Wink
Label: Ovum
Genre: Tech House

Stay Up All Night (Organ mix)
Stay Up All Night (No Organ)
Stay Up All Night (Dub)

This is a functional track by Wink and it's one of those that when you read the feedback you wonder if you've got a special "edit". It throbs along in an understated way and will no doubt underlay some more attention-grabbing tunes, enhancing their dancefloor worth, but nothing special. The "organ mix" and "no organ" only differ in the most obvious way. The "dub" checks in at about half the length of the other two versions and emphasises the percussion and the organ, shrinking the throbbing underlying bass to within an inch of it's life. None of these do it for me, but it's going to be remixed by Harry Romero, Someone Else and Dixon so hopefully they'll do something a litlle bit more indiosyncratic.

Title: World Keeps Turning
Artist: Psychonauts
Label: Souvenir
Genre: Bombastic

World Keeps Turning (original)
World Keeps Turning (Audiofly remix)
World Keeps Turning (Highfish remix)
World Keeps Turning (Mogg & Naudascher remix)

The Psychonauts biggie "World Keeps Turning" gets a rerelease with some shiny new remixes on Tiefschwarz's Souvenir. Sorry to be so negative from the beginning, but I didn't like it then and I still don't. It's over-ostentatious, both lyrically and vocally. So let's neatly side-step my obvious prejudice and get to the remixes. The "Mogg and Naudeshcer" remix toughens things up a lot, enough to make it unrecognisable from the original, and I love me 303. Unfortunately the vocal is still well in evidence so I'm not going to go overboard about it. The "Highfish" remix gives a lot of space to the vocal and underlays it with a nice dramatic backdrop p;lucked straight from Europe's frozen wastes. Audiofly provide the slowest-ppaced remix on offer here, and perhaps the most interesting, but I'm just not a fan of the vocal, and if you don't like that then there's no point with this package. The remixes do their best to offer something different respectively, the quality of the instrumental input is high and I dare say this will be a well-received package, but the vocal overshadows everything for me. Audiofly take the honours here though.



Title: Babouine House
Artist: Anthony Collins
Label: Freak n' Chic
Genre: Tech House

Babouine House (original)
Babouine House (Mikael Stavostrand remix)

Good two-tracker that doesn't do anything except rock the floor in it's own sweet way. The original relies on congas and bongoes to keep it going and is punctuated by vocal snippets in a language I don't understand, there's the simple touch of a vibrating bell that stays at a constant pitch throughout parts of the track too. Other touches come in and out of the tracks too at just the right time. Mikael Stavostrand strips 'tings down and keeps things more menacing and subdued, subtly distorting and underplaying the vocal and distilling the percussion down to one or two of it's original elements. Cleverly done and devilishly devious.

Title: Tumble Dry Low EP
Artist: Various
Label: Siteholder Uncut
Genre: Tech-House

Here I Come - Brad Miner
White Socks - Quell
David's Song - Andrew Grant
Fuzzyhead - Diego Fieri
Osaka - Pablo Rez

Aren't you sick by now of the genre "tech-house"? What is it anyway? I remember when it was first coined and the Wiggle lads, Terry Francis and Nathan Coles said it applied to good house and techno, anything they'd consider playing in fact, or something like that. So here's the "Tumble Dry Low EP" on Siteholder Uncut, and a fine mixed bag of tech funk goodies it is too. I'll be brief because my son's crying and wants a bath so I'll just say that there isn't a bad track on this EP. I particularly like Brad Miner's offering as well as Andrew Grant's. Diego Fieri's "Fuzzyhead" is just the right combination of raw, jackin' funk and sleaze while "Osaka" by Pablo Rez is a chunky offering that throbs through the slipstream and out into the sunshine. Quell keeps things real with a very housey offering with the tunes elements nicely offsetting each other. It's all good.