Section 25:
Eigengrau:
Klanggalerie:
Out 22nd July:
7.5/10
In what has become a busy year for Blackpool's revitalized daughters (and sons), Eigengrau follows 2013's triumphant new studio album Dark Light, the accompanying Record Store Day 7" My Outrage and a recent six-track 10" EP Invicta Max, which featured a memorable remix of the unreleased Microgroove courtesy of Absolute Body Control.
The same outfit have lent their remixing chops to this intriguing CD of remixes released on Austrian label Klanggalerie. The premise for the album is simple - the label already hold a candle to Section 25's gritty post-punk/electro-wave output and argue that the band are revered in other circles including industrial and the avant-garde. Thus masters were duly dispatched to luminaries from said genres, fed through various studio mixing desks and programs and transferred into an imaginative, if not always convincing, artifact of new versions of ten different S25 favourites.
For my money, some of Eigengrau supersedes previous self-rerecorded/remix project Retrofit, primarily because these versions are so far from the originals, yet retain the band's experimental trademarks. So Atomizer transform Girls Don't Count into a throbbing club-banger, the Absolute Body Control name pops up again, this time on Beating Heart (possibly the best version since the original) and 7JK turn Desert into a funereal road-trip that works best with the lights off. Dust Orchestra actually turn out the best ever version of Inner Drive, morphing it into an unlikely tribal romp that sounds like it was powered by bodhrans or Kendo drummers.
The most notable amongst the remaining contributors include John Foxx's Maths collaborator Benge with Cabaret Voltaire's Stephen Mallinder (on the moody Looking From a Hilltop), 23 Skidoo offer a drum-heavy reworking of New Horizon while Portion Control keep things simple with their take on Dirty Disco. It's also good to see the name Renaldo and the Loaf appear on something new, although I'm not sure their bizarre version of Girls Don't Count was quite what its creators were banking on.
There are some misfires - Volcano The Bear completely miss the mark with their muddled reading of the otherwise lovely The Process, DDAA have stripped out all the warmth from Uberhymn and there are possibly two too many remixes of Desert for my liking. However, of the four on offer, Zoviet France just edge it ahead of 7JK.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of remix-albums but Eigengrau is a brave effort and doubles up as both a serviceable introduction to a band crying out for a new generation of admirers and a showcase for some smart remix work throughout. Wins all round, methinks.
Eigengrau:
Klanggalerie:
Out 22nd July:
7.5/10
The same outfit have lent their remixing chops to this intriguing CD of remixes released on Austrian label Klanggalerie. The premise for the album is simple - the label already hold a candle to Section 25's gritty post-punk/electro-wave output and argue that the band are revered in other circles including industrial and the avant-garde. Thus masters were duly dispatched to luminaries from said genres, fed through various studio mixing desks and programs and transferred into an imaginative, if not always convincing, artifact of new versions of ten different S25 favourites.
For my money, some of Eigengrau supersedes previous self-rerecorded/remix project Retrofit, primarily because these versions are so far from the originals, yet retain the band's experimental trademarks. So Atomizer transform Girls Don't Count into a throbbing club-banger, the Absolute Body Control name pops up again, this time on Beating Heart (possibly the best version since the original) and 7JK turn Desert into a funereal road-trip that works best with the lights off. Dust Orchestra actually turn out the best ever version of Inner Drive, morphing it into an unlikely tribal romp that sounds like it was powered by bodhrans or Kendo drummers.
The most notable amongst the remaining contributors include John Foxx's Maths collaborator Benge with Cabaret Voltaire's Stephen Mallinder (on the moody Looking From a Hilltop), 23 Skidoo offer a drum-heavy reworking of New Horizon while Portion Control keep things simple with their take on Dirty Disco. It's also good to see the name Renaldo and the Loaf appear on something new, although I'm not sure their bizarre version of Girls Don't Count was quite what its creators were banking on.
There are some misfires - Volcano The Bear completely miss the mark with their muddled reading of the otherwise lovely The Process, DDAA have stripped out all the warmth from Uberhymn and there are possibly two too many remixes of Desert for my liking. However, of the four on offer, Zoviet France just edge it ahead of 7JK.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of remix-albums but Eigengrau is a brave effort and doubles up as both a serviceable introduction to a band crying out for a new generation of admirers and a showcase for some smart remix work throughout. Wins all round, methinks.