Nav Katze: Gentle & Elegance (VICL-746)
1. ready to go
2. lilac moon light
3. tiny cog
4. happy
5. happy? (qunk mix by autechre)
6. tightrope
7. heaven electric
8. heaven - disjecta - electric (seefeel mix)
9. border
10. borderless (sun electric mix)
11. gentle & elegance
I decided to get this album, having liked the samples on their website, and
having loved the melodies on the remix album that everyone should have picked
up by now. The non-remix tracks have varying charms - all of them are
synth-based songs with lots of effects and female vocals. Most of them contain
melodies ever so closely verging on saccharine, but somehow falling just short
of it to remain simply sweet. There seems to have been an effort to really
work on the beats carefully, maybe learning a few things from the masters who
remixed their older songs on the last remix album.
The Autechre remix is great - very Garbage-ish, building gradually with
typical Autechre metallic noises, with just a hint of the harmony from the
original. The strong melody even affects the Seefeel remix, which suprised me,
since almost all Seefeel and Disjecta stuff I'd heard was rather slim on the
melody front. The Sun Electric mix is beatless for the most part, quite
lovely. But Autechre takes the case here for the best remix.
Overall, a nice addition to the IDM collection, a must for Autechre fans, but
not essential per se.
James Jung-Hoon Seo // Oracle New Media
(415) 506-3829 // jseo@us.oracle.com
You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken.