Nav Katze
Never Mind the Distortion II
VICL-60025
1. Ready to Go (The Gentle People Mix)
2. Lilac Moonlight (Disjecta Mix)
3. Tightrope (Disjecta Mix)
4. Borderless #2 (Sun Electric Mix)
5. Tiny Cog (Disjecta Mix)
6. Happier... (Seefeel Mix)
7. Happy! (u-Ziq Mix)
8. Happy? (qunk Mix Dub Autechre)
The last time Nav Katze wrangled together several IDM powerhouses - AFX, Black
Dog, Reload, etc. - to remix their back catalog, the result was an album full
of goodies. Here comes part deux, with remixes of tracks from their last
album, "Gentle & Elegance", which also contained a few mixes from Disjecta,
Sun Electric, and Autechre. If anything, the packaging this time around is a
huge improvement: this has to be one of the most exquisite DR covers ever, a
double-sided foldout, six pages long on each side, very much in the Chiastic
Slide style, less abstract, more intricate.
The Gentle People kick things off with a surprisingly meaty & beaty remix,
complete with a funky breakdown, drenched in warm synth washes and plonking
noises. All three Disjecta mixes are decent; the rhythms, noises, and vocal
sampling are rather AFXish albeit more restrained and straight-faced (and
overlong). Sun Electric keeps all the vocals and turns in an excellent, lovely
remix, with lots of ambient touches and almost ethnic-sounding drums. The
beatless Seefeel remix is skeletal - ghostly noises hovering around the
simple, repeated melody. The u-Ziq remix starts off like a Jake Slazenger
track, with the main melody straight out of "Das Ist...". The track itself is
an uneasy blend of the cheesy melody with pitched-down vocals and
insistent/funkless beats, but it gets better, as signature u-Ziq noises -
mechanical, distored - enter the picture late in the track, along with a nice
rolling piano. It's almost like a musical summary of Mike P's many
personalities (minus the latest d'n'b aspect). Autechre wraps it up with a
scary one - a thousand shards of the the vocal sample hurled at you, minimal
beats with their perverse funk, bucketfuls of distorted noises and scratches.
Overall, the whole comp is listenable from start to finish, which is a lot
more than I can say about many other comps I've shelled out for. While there
isn't one single jewel like the last time (the Black Dog remix of Never Not is
still an all-time fave), this is quite a tasty collection.
Cheers,
James Jung-Hoon Seo // Oracle Tools Fundamental Technology Group
(415) 506-3829 // 2op873 // jseo@us.oracle.com
When 'Clerks' happened, I thought it would be a good idea to insure further
work by maintaining that it was the first part of a trilogy. It seemed to work
for George Lucas. // Kevin Smith