- You're setting yourself up for a fall when you name a track 'Disorientation'. I'm sure that with the aid of drugs, a lack of sleep and a heaving dancefloor, Guy Gerber's would live up to its name, but sober, coffee-filled and in front of a laptop, it's the sound of now, a minor league attempt at weird that falls far short of the mark.
Blame the echoing sax (done to better effect in Glimpse's 'Elephant Skins') and the strings that determinedly mark time (again, with the Italoboyz's 'Zinga'). There's no problem with Gerber's sound design, which is predictably excellent, it’s just that the track is the epitome of trite, with too little "I don't care how much it bites from other people, it still bangs"-ness to raise it up. Far from disorienting me, I found myself mentally checking off a list of Villalobos-isms as they entered in, right on the beat.
Johnny D busies up the original on the other side and, in so doing, actually achieves the effect of the title. You almost want a machete when listening to the Mannheim producer's remix: The thick jungle of beats, melodies and random sounds is overwhelming (clouds of sound, bird calls (?) and a flute all make an appearance). A calling card for a possible future EP on Vakant? Perhaps.
Unfortunately, D is the only one on form here. Reboot's rework is that most typical of minimal failures: in love with its own sound design, there's nothing here that makes you remember it on first, second or fifteenth listen. Like his work for Cadenza, Reboot's take is an airless, hermetic environment that refers to nothing but itself. Sometimes that's a good thing. Here, it's not. You can dance to it—and DJs will certainly buy it—but will anyone remember this ten years down the line?
TracklistA Disorientation
B1 Disorientation (Johnny D remix)
BII Disorientation (Reboot´s Clik And Gogogo Rework)