Tennis (Ben Edwards, Douglas Benford) delivers a crackling set of
slow-moving microcuts. The languid “Bat 2 Far” dips and droops like an
old fashioned amusement park ride, a fun house of low-fi proportions.
In the ongoing practice of BiP-HOp, this lil’ French caboose that could,
a very definite mark has been made on the minimal electronic music
scene. The eerie dynamic of “Pine Martin Eden” puts the listener in a
room with a menacing grandfather clock with concealed intentions. The
sheer pensive approach on “Badger Tracks” stirs a countless amount of
references, many from cinema, many from industry. The final track “Mole
Colour” sounds like a blurry Pole, with a less funky twist of vibe-like
synths.
Disc 2 provides the “horseback mixes” from Tennis’ 2001 effort
Europe on Horseback. Opening with Taylor Deupree’s ephemeral take on
“Self-Seal Mishap” we are introduced to a pure atmospherically polished
“12,000m Above Halifax” Mix. Does this concur that Taylor was mixing in
the sky? Seems so when you close your eyes and imagine repetitive cloud
masses and momentary sunny breaks. Chicago’s Warmdesk (William Selman)
incorporates a purring, mechanical minimalism on his update to “Civic
Halo”, almost creating his own whole new track, the original is hinted at
in such a brilliant, disguised light. bitTonic’s (Iris Garrelfs)
“Permafrost” version of “Civic Halo” reminds me of the aftermath of a
thawing ice-storm. With a hollow center and writhing edges – she has
developed a dizzy, repetitious ending that fades into a void of squeaky
unprotected gears and things. “Safelle” is now the “Viral Spectra Mix” in
the hands of Bay Area’s Kim Cascone. As he warps and twists the
delicate original it has become a contorted and bass built micropiece.
When Frank Bretschneider takes on the same duties on this track his
remix is full of treble and tapping pop – sweetly dizzying in its bare
bones harmony and groovy sensibility. Scanner’s eclipsing of “Weakness
Together” is by far the stand out track here. His “Dvojitá Chyba Mix” has
left a harmonic hum and its curiously funky, staying true to the
original, while implanting some signature voice and structure to the
track. Weeding and filtering to the finite, French guitarist and
electronic whizkid electoniCat (Fred Bigot) takes “Contube Alomany” apart.
He then pieces it fluidly back together in a streaming and distorted
barrage of beat oriented sound. When Scottish CK Dexter Haven takes on
this track there is a reverse fore/background play with our
(sur)reality. Her use of tonal sine waves makes for some awkward
micro-distortion. Mikael Stavostrand takes “Loose-Knit Pierrot” to a
sub-ambient place. More like a blurry formal dance inside a crystal
ball, his work here has the lilt of fresh sheets in the open breeze. UK
filmmaker Chris Dooks’ Bovine Life made a big impression with his recent
Social Electrics (also on BiP-HOp), and here blends voice samples and
chant to a haunting cinematic effect. The end result is a perfect
ending to a well balanced double set that is in my top ten spins,
especially for those in denial that small sounds have a big impact.
