(March 2010) Spring is the time of rebirth and new ventures and the world of electronics is no exception. The excellent MinimalRome is starting down a new avenue, an electro sublabel with a sharpened dancefloor slant: MRX. This new imprint is starting its life with two releases, J.T.C. with Basturma Highway and The Hacker with Haunted.
J.T.C. aka James T. Cotton is the techno/house project of Tadd Mullinuix who is also behind Dabrye moniker. In many respects Cotton has been one of the most influential house artists of recent times, turning the sound back to its acidified past whilst adding his own elements of darkness and squalor. J.T.C. has showcased his tracks on Crème Organization and Spectral Sound, now he takes the reins of fledgling MRX. The two tracker opens the J.T.C. MRX account with the title piece “Basturma Highway.” Some of the usual acid horror is left at the door for this 4/4 piece which builds along vintage analogue tones. Synthesizer arches cross 808 beats and toes the border of the floor. “Overnight” sees Cotton move more into assault mode. The tempo follows the line of the predecessor, but ricocheted vocals meet a new world of 303 sound. The track has aspects of Cotton’s unsettled side, with sinister shifts leading the listener into the darker realms of house squalor.
In a peculiar twist The Hacker is the second serving on MRX but on putting the needle to Haunted the choice begins to make more sense. An eerie electro line pours from the speaker, with devious acid spikes slicing through inchoate slides. Feedback steps up for a remix and takes the acid undertones of The Hacker’s mix and plunges them into a 303 pickle. The underhanded elements of the original are jacked and demonised to create a sinister acid rework. The last track on the second instalment of MRX is a final remix of “Haunted” by the new MR project Banda Banetti. This time “Haunted” is put into the techno grinder, with some shards of acid dripped in for good measure. The track holds a solid 4/4 house beat, but in the old school way injects an element of degradation though a twisted, tweaked and tortured acid line to create a nasty depraved piece.
MRX is not a split in the MinimalRome manifesto, it is a tributary of the project. This new offshoot still contains that unsettling and lurking aspect that MinimalRome has cultivated over a number of releases, but with MRX the knife has been sharpened and the stalker has become more aggressive. There have been tracks in the MinimalRome catalogue that could fit into the MRX sound, C-34 Vs. Andreas Herz’s remanipulation of Watch Yourself springs to mind with its jagged snarls of techno. Now these sounds have somewhere to take root, and based on the quality of the first two releases it looks like this sound will flourish on MRX.
Both releases are out now on MRX.
