- Not long ago, London's James Shaw, AKA Sigha (pronounced "sigh-er," in case you were wondering), was making skeletal post-UKG in classic Hessle Audio/Hotflush fashion, to a standard which, at times, eclipsed the work of bigger names like Ramadanman and Scuba. It comes as something of a surprise then, that for the debut release of his newly spawned Our Circula Sound imprint, it's Marcel Dettmann, lord of the Berghain stomp, who turns in the steppier of the two tracks. Then again, anyone who's been following the respective trajectories of the two men will have noticed the increasing linearity of the former's sound, and the diminishing rigidity of the latter's.
It's not like Berlin is the new south London (or vice versa), but times have certainly changed. Sigha circa winter '10 is all growling, square-bass techno menace, coming off like Peter Van Hoesen, Conforce and MLZ rolled into one (deep, rolling and edgy), whereas Dettmann—responsible for some of the starkest-ever Hard Wax reductions—has, if this and a recent remix for Commix are anything to go by, gone a teeny weeny bit Surgeon. His remix of "Early Morning Lights" skips rather than jacks, all splayed kicks and droning effervescence, but retains enough 4/4 urgency to keep floors pumping. And while neither track strays too far from the norms of pan-European deep techno—which now incorporates a fair amount sub-bass and 2-step swing—it's enough that both parties maintain their typically high, and subtly evolving, standards.
Tracklist A Over the Edge
B Early Morning Lights (Marcel Dettmann Remix)