Curiouser and curiouser. It never ceases to amaze me how t(r)endencies in dance music collide, mutate, and spawn new monsters. If one of the key refrains of producers (against music journalists) is that we keep on pigeonholing them against their will, then the reply should be a demand for some sympathy—how else are we to get a handle on all this flux? This EP is so thoroughly under the influences that it staggers—there’s crunk, hip-hop, house (bouncy French, disco, micro, electro, whore), plus nods to rave, all packaged with lashings of snappy pop.

First listen reminded me of my mother, telling me that Big Black was “headache music.” I didn’t think Songs About Fucking was, but this EP is colorful like a mouthful of gummies, high like your surging blood sugar, and sickly like your stomach after the binge is over. The original has got the cut, paste, and bounce of Akufen’s old classics like “Deck the House” and “Quebec Nightclub.” The problem with the track (to these ears at least) is the minor-key string sample over the top of the mix, which abrades the party below.

Riton’s mix is the übermanic wedding of the original’s housey parts to full-bore synth-electro madness. Like Alter Ego’s remix of Partial Arts a few months back, if the kids in your club don’t dance to this, they’re dead. That’s not a threat, it’s a medical fact. The “Drowning” mix by Surkin continues with the cut and spazz, but this time is matched with sirens, rave atmospheres and big-room house ass. Headache music! (Dear god, I’m turning into my mother.) Finally, Beckett and Taylor take their hands off the plow long enough to outclass their fellows with a mix that sounds surprisingly adult and sophisticated by comparison, while still keeping things well hectic.

It feels odd to praise an EP I have difficulty listening to from start to finish, but this is exemplary, and if you’re a “working gal” (in the DJ sense) this is a warhorse for the whore-house.

Naive France / Institubes / NV 809166/ INS 12017
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[Peter Chambers]