- Burial, Dettmann, Lucy—an all-star cast revisit a '90s techno classic.
- Luke Slater's "Love" passes what might the most brutal test in electronic music: it still sounds great 20 years later (or in this case, 21). Originally released on the 1998 album Freek Funk, "Love" is soaring and dreamy, with ghostly vocals and airy breakbeats, surely one of the best things the UK techno artist ever made. Now, Slater has revisited "Love" with a pack of remixes, two from himself (as Planetery Assault Systems and The 7th Plain) and six more from Burial, Marcel Dettmann, Scuba and Silent Servant.
Burial's remix, obviously the most eye-catching on paper, is just a tad underwhelming—clean and neatly quantized, lacking his usual dankness, if not his air of mystery. The others are more heavy duty club tracks. Lucy's is particularly striking, with an eerie chipmunk vocal that, at the end of each breakdown, does a kind of spin-back into the track's perfectly smooth and thumping kick. Marcel Dettmann delivers two, one of which, the "City Remix," shows my personal favorite version of him as a producer, mixing the classic Berghain sound with something warmer, trippier, almost Koze-esque, like he did on his remix of Radio Slave's "Vision." Scuba's "Bagley's Remix," presumably inspired by the '90s London club of that name, is more of a terrace smasher, with splashy snares, big breakdowns and neon-tinted chords. Silent Servant's is bright and dubby, backdropped by what sounds like the groan of an '80s goth rock guitar, Bauhaus-style.
The star of the EP is Slater's remix as The 7th Plain. The "Collage Remix" is 15-minutes long and deeply atmospheric. Each sound has the gravitas of a cosmic event: aurora borealis chords, a vocal sample like god on an intercom, after a good ten minutes or so some celestial breaks. His "Low Blow Remix" as Planetary Assault Systems is a clubbier take on the same idea, clocking in at ten minutes with a breakdown clubbers would likely assume is a different track, until that richly evocative voicemail sample creeps in, just before the drop.
Tracklist01. Love (Burial Remix)
02. Love (Lucy Remix)
03. Love (The 7th Plain Collage Remix)
04. Love (Planetary Assault Systems Low Blow Remix)
05. Love (Marcel Dettmann City Remix)
06. Love (Silent Servant Remix)
07. Love (Marcel Dettmann Black Glove Remix)
08. Love (Scuba Bagleys Remix)