Three names explain why this electro selection carries more weight than it lets on: Larry Heard, DJ Hell and Rex The Dog. The other seventeen cuts —running from 79 to 140 BPM— orbit around them.
'Plastic Nightmares', the anchor
At 7:29, the Mr. Fingers cut is the longest of the twenty, and it arrives with fresh history: it opens 'Leev Ur Mynd', the album Larry Heard released in April on his own Alleviated Records. At 126 BPM in A minor, it is the piece that shouts the least and lingers the longest: the Chicago luminary working textures instead of punches, a centre of gravity for everything around it.
In the opposite corner sits 'Dr. Deutschland (The Exaltics Remix)': 4:09 at 137 BPM, brushing the tempo ceiling of the pack. It comes from 'Gesamtklärwerk Deutschland (The Remixes)', the project pairing DJ Hell with Jonathan Meese on International DeeJay Gigolo Records. The Exaltics turn it into a retro-futurist surge with not a second to spare: where Heard suggests, everything here is voltage aimed straight at the body.
The third vertex is 'I Need Your Body' by Rex The Dog, lifted from the 'Far Out!' EP Kompakt released in June. At 101 BPM in C minor, it is the introspective moment of the list: a yearning vocal over an elastic rhythm loaded with dub effects, proof that electro also knows how to ache a little.
Between those three poles —Chicago depth, Gigolo electricity, Kompakt's pop melancholy— sit finds worth an ear: the Red Axes remix of 'Broken Mirror' (7:18, the second-longest cut), Nicola Cruz's 'Heliocenter' for Kalahari Oyster Cult, or Arma and Club Designs closing with 'Dance Battle'. But the backbone is where it is: if a festival selection is measured by its anchors, this one has three driven in deep.
Sources: RA · Juno Download · Kompakt
