Third Side – Unity Remixes review

Could it have been a Don Corleone-esque “I’m gonna make them an offer they can’t refuse,” mumble from Third Side aka Lucretio, Marieu and Steffi that lead to the recent disbanding of the Swedish House Mafia? Regardless, Third Side and the Restoration family have always reigned supreme in the underworld of analogue house music.

Ironically it’s Lucretio and Marieu who make up The Analogue Cops, not the first time police and a mafia of sorts have done business. This time it comes in the form of the Unity Remixes EP, a precursor to the forthcoming Third Side album on Restoration and it’s a family affair. The Anglo-Italian relations between Blawan and The Analogue Cops are further strengthened here, with the tireless Englishman remixing Lucretio and Marieu for the first time, having previously collaborated onThe Big Family EP in 2011 and later for Vae Victis’ debut opus The Cursory EP. The close bonds are further demonstrated with fellow Vae Victis artists Nightjars also providing a remix, whilst Steffi steps out of her Third Side persona to deliver a final revision

The raw, repetitive, lo-fi and beat down rhetoric synonymous with Restoration is of course ever present throughout the release. Third Side’s original version of “Unity” loops through a shuffled groove of busy bass drums, bobbling chimes and piqued synth stabs that work in harmony with a throbbing bass line. Steffi offers a contrasting approach, smoothing over much of the abrasion, similar in sound to Dettmann’s cold and dusty production ethic, and makes for a track more suited to the long haul in Berghain than her residential Panorama Bar.

Nightjars deliver the near impossible in somehow managing to submit Third Side’s arrangement to further crunching and smudging, substituting the groove for fuzzy edged noise and powerhouse percussion.And then we come to Blawan, prolific as always, whose genetically engineered yet another Frankenstein’s monster of a production where lumbering low end, box cutter snares, ghoulish bells and his trademark wigged out acid mutations form the core of the DNA. More importantly it acts as another reminder of how the UK producer is single handedly reshaping the UK techno sound.

James Manning

Tracklisting:

A1. Unity
A2. Unity (Blawan remix)
B1. Unity (Steffi remix)
B2. Unity (Nightjars remix)