Model 500 – OFI (remixes) review

The two opposing ends of  the R&S historical spectrum collide brilliantly on this ten inch as the track that marked Model 500’s return to the imprint after a fourteen year absence gets taken apart and put back together in gloriously diverse fashion by two rising talents. It’s a near exercise in futility to try and separate these two remixes of Model 500’s “OFI” and proclaim one the winner, as both the submissions from Bullion and Space Dimension Controller are teeming at the brink with ideas that radicalise the template of the original.

Anyone who indulged in the recent non album from Bullion will be fully aware of this producer’s capacity to twist through tempos and rhythms at will and make it all work. That approach is more than replicated on his “Rivertrance Remix”, which on first inspection sounds like three tracks in one. Galloping along via a bottomed out kraut groove, Bullion swerves through a collage of dizzying psychedelic sounds and effects in the space of four and a bit minutes which laugh generously in the face of categorisation.

The flipside “Evasive Funk” remix from Celtic astronaut Space Dimension Controller retains the austere electro funk pulse of the original from Atkins, Banks and Taylor but sharpens the pace markedly, embellishing the bass with a schizophrenic menace that is matched by the sheer depth of percussive layers and synthesized touches.

Tony Poland