Moderat have just announced details of their second album, to be released in August on Monkeytown Records.
Despite its many charms, Minehead’s Butlins resort in mid March is patently not Barcelona. Yet it’s here, out of season by the Bristol channel, that a musical movement is brewing to rival that of Sónar as one of the world’s premiere events catering for discerning electronic music.
Former Radio One stalwart Mary Anne Hobbs has announced some of the names who will be appearing on her showcase stage at next year’s Bloc Festival with L-Vis 1990 and Roska amongst those playing.
Something unexpected, rare and highly classy from the Berlin based technoid juggernaut that is Modeselektor. In 2006, a little known bootleg emerged featuring the vocals from 50 Cent’s “Just A Little Bit”, released under the name “50 Weapons”, which subsequently got linked back to the ‘Selektor boys. With the dust having settled, they’ve just dropped a whole new installment of the series, featuring Siriusmo, Roska and Housemeister amongst others. The plan with this self-titled label is to go the distance and release 50 weapons and then stop. If they’re anything like these gems, they’re going to become very hot property.
Remixing unreleased Modeselektor and Moderat material this time around, the assembled crew live up to their awesome reputations. Siriusmo’s mix of “Untitled” is a heavy glitch-step with some incredible double-time breakdowns, while Phon O’s “Art & Cash” is just hands down stunning – a truly breathtaking mix of Baltimore drums, tribal drums and galloping Berlin synths that may well become the favourite with DJ’s from this collection. Headhunter and Shackleton keep things fairly minimal on their mixes – the former making “A New Error” into an icy dub-dream rhythm, while the latter’s “Rusty Nails” goes even heavier on the frosty atmospherics for a full-on 6am vibe. SBTRKT does wonders with “Art & Cash”, supplying upfront beats and roughed-up chords for a heart-wrenching builder, while Housemeister goes full on glitch-techno for his mix of “Untitled”. Roska rounds the set off in the only way he knows how – deep basslines and a slew of perfectly arranged handdrums – on his take on “Art & Cash”. It’s a genre hopping collection, but there’s absolutely no faulting the quality of any of these prize nuggets. All we can say is – use these weapons wisely.
Review: Oliver Keens
Artist: Moderat
Title: Sea Monkey (remixes)
Label: BPitch
Genre: Dubstep/Grime
Format: 12″, Digital
Buy From: Juno Records, Juno Download
Moderat, the alliance of genre-breaking duo Modeselektor and electronica wunderkind Apparat, unleash the first set of remixes for one of the stand-out tracks from their debut album, “Sea Monkey”.
The first round comes from dubstep producer of the moment Untold (from the Hotflush camp) and first wave techno head Surgeon.
While Untold builds on the original’s percussion lines and takes us on an emotionally heavy wild ride with pounding low frequencies carried by shuffled two-step grooves, Surgeon creates a full-metal industrial atmosphere leaving you wondering if you just arrived at an underground rave party located in an abandoned factory or accidentally ended up on the set of a nerve-wracking horror movie.
Reviewer: Alexander Seltenreich