The Exaltics :: The Truth Remixes (Solar One)

Everything that is good about electro is here. The harshness of the genre’s almost draconian parameters and how those limits can be stretched and bent to the musician’s will. Beautiful soundscapes tapered by rigidity, talented illustrations of how this sometimes overlooked style has so much to offer. Quality through and through.

Solar One Music has set itself a difficult goal: to constantly outdo itself. But, amazingly, this is what the Jena label manages to do time and time again. However, I’ve a feeling that the latest 12″ will take something very special to overshadow.

The heavyweights of electro have been gathered together to rework a selection from Robert Witschkowski’s The Truth. Gerard Hanson aka E.R.P. takes on “My Language” to be begin. The soul and striking snares of the original are maintained as Hanson applies his unmistakable subtlety to the track. Ultradyne leap away from any sense of comfort as a cold and crushed “Compressed Thoughts” is offered. The flip is introduced by the shadowy figure of Shad T.Scott. Gosub’s Turbidity Mix of “i.m.o.E.H.” is a fantastically light interpretation. Silvery, twinkling synthlines buttressed by snapping beats. Perhaps the remixer that stands out as an outsider of the quintet is Objekt. Not that T.J. Hertz isn’t a well known machine musician, it’s that he doesn’t really sit within the electro elite on show. For me Objekt has always belonged more to the modern glitched up dub circuit. But beware of stereotypes. What is offered is a totally different experience from the other artists involved. Loose but measured Hertz blends his own crossed style to that of The Exaltics for a electronica tinged excursion. The biggest gun is reserved for the end. Dopplereffekt close with their Hubble Constant remodel of “Instinct.” A reserved warmth washes over the track, clinical chords echoing against a steady bass line. An inhuman end from Gerard Donald camp.

This was always going to be an exemplary remix project. I can’t remember the last time such a band of artists were brought together with the explicit aim of reinterpreting another artist. Everything that is good about electro is here. The harshness of the genre’s almost draconian parameters and how those limits can be stretched and bent to the musician’s will. Beautiful soundscapes tapered by rigidity, talented illustrations of how this sometimes overlooked style has so much to offer. Quality through and through.

The Truth Remixes is available on Solar One.