Author Archives: Clint Hoagland

Despite its 90s metal moniker, Kartell’s “Panterra” is no speed freak.  No, here Kartell starts with some atmospheric filter house, cuts it up with some nifty fidgets, and then slows it down.  Way down.  94 BPM!  The resulting slow mash is what I’d expect to hear while drinking the finest gin with The Most Interesting Man In The World.  “Pantera” is an enveloping swirl that reminds you to dress up when you go out.

Incidentally, Kartell’s Soundcloud page graciously allows downloading of this and several other tracks, at least for the time being.

Kartell – Panterra

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Louisiana wunderkind Christoph Andersson returns with “Metropol,” a slinky house number that slides on (and slips off) like a silk kimono.  Andersson’s resampled vocals create a formant-shifted choir around a rubbery funk  bassline, while an Eastern-flavored synth line rings out like a koto above it all, as if New Order had been remixing songs off of The Cure’s Japanese Whispers.  JAPANESE WHISPERS CAME OUT TEN YEARS BEFORE CHRISTOPH ANDERSSON WAS BORN.

An engaging and polished track, “Metropol” went instantly into my own personal playlist.

Christoph Andersson – Metropol

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On “ANGST:ONE”, Paris’s Black Strobe take The Toxic Avenger‘s relatively straightforward original into a very different place. By resampling the original’s piano backing and forcing it to follow a bionic bassline all over the chromatic map, they’ve created a wholly new track. It zooms away from electro house and shoots past electroclash into the kind of unblinking funky weirdness I’d expect to encounter on an Ersatz Audio compilation. It’s definitely not boring.

I just wish it were longer.

The Toxic Avenger – ANGST:ONE (Black Strobe Remix)

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Remixers have a lot of options. They can add extra stuff to a song: by adding instruments; by making the track longer; by adding stutter effects… but a lot of times the best way to add to a track is by cutting stuff away. This remix of Pendulum‘s trancey “The Island Pt.I (Dawn)” (not to be confused with Pendulum’s electro freakout “The Island Pt. II (Dusk)”) demonstrates the virtues of addition-by-subtraction. Paradoxically, the remix is a more exciting listen despite the fact there’s a lot less in it.

Here, San Francisco-based DJ/producer Max Vangeli teams up with Steve Angello and AN21 (both of Swedish House Mafia fame) and improves the track dramatically by cutting away all the nonessentials.
The remix takes a goosebump-inducing left turn into silence at the drop, announcing its intentions to make the synth the centerpiece. Pendulum’s more meandering verse-chorus-verse structure is discarded in favor of a more economical (or should I say obsessive?) repetition of the song’s synth hook and a snippet of vocals. Add in a few subtle electro-flavored production touches (a glitchier opening hook, more pumping against the kick), and the whole thing just seems… tighter. More purposeful.

Pendulum – The Island (Steve Angello, AN21 & Max Vangeli Remix)

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