CD, WTII Records, 2005
www.ptinc.net
I was looking forward to reviewing this disc as I considered “Blackout” (the album on which tracks from this remix disc are to be found in their original versions) one of the stand out “modern EBM” releases of 2004. It proved that shiny dance floor electro didn’t necessarily have to score high on the cheese-o-meter and that dystopian, futuristic lyrics are not yet completely redundant if approached with a degree of competence.
This sister disc spans a generous fifteen tracks in all from big name artists such as Negative Format, Assemblage 23, Flesh Field and God Module as well as some lesser lights such as MindFluxFuneral, Z Prochek, Christ Analogue, Interface, Torrent Vaccine, Deadliner, Y-Luk-O, Lukotyk and Iammynewt. The problem I have with this release is that most of the mixes add very little to the already impressive originals and you would be hard pressed to identify any of the mixes with serious dance floor potential. The two most impressive mixes are both of the excellent “Databass”, one done by PTI themselves who turn the track into something a little more DJ friendly and Flesh Field who add a thumping guitar track and beat to the proceedings. Special mentions should also go the Negative format who trance out the “Gone Silicon” track and MindFLuxFuneral who have taken a copy and paste approach to remixing and grabbed influences from all over the place to create a surprisingly listenable pastiche of coldwave and big beat.
I suspect the main reason for purchasing this disc will be for the unreleased new track named “Exhaust” which is a good track in its own right but not really sure it warrants the price tag associated with a remix album. If you don’t have the excellent “Blackout” disc buy that instead as this really should have been a single release for the new track with a few of the better mixes backing it up as B-sides.
[5/10]
— Michael Hinchliffe