The first time I heard Bugnology I was visiting a friend who was playing it and it sounded just right: just diverting enough to make me notice, just anonymous enough to keep me from not noticing anything else. It turned out Steve Bug had been around a while, though I'd missed him till then, but the music on display—crisp, sharp house silhouettes with tech detailing, hair and makeup—didn't need a back story. Maybe it simply couldn't support one, but I think the case is more that it simply throws it off. The emphasis is so much on detail in this music that the idea of the big picture can get a little lost.
But Bug's mixes in the Bugnology series—this is his third in four years for his Poker Flat label (which also issues annual compilations of its own; Bug also founded Dessous) and follows the ten-month-old Fabric 37—are, in this world, widely palatable: hooky and forceful enough to hook more mainstream listeners, tight and just oblique enough for more serious fans. In a way, it's easy to imagine them enduring in a way that work we might think of as better won't—the kind of mixes new listeners pick up on from their older siblings, that work to get them into the habit.
Bugnology 3 is lighter in tone than Fabric 37, and everything meshes nicely while still offering twists from a few different corners: Kink & Neville Watson's "Inside Out" is a more or less straight-up Detroit techno homage, while Schatrax's mix of Daso & Pawas' "Det" is so big and three-dimensional and underwater in feel you'd think it was ambient if not for the drums. That track is followed by Sven U.K. & Andomat 3000's "O Moresi," whose fuzzy, deep kick and frazzled horn refrain makes it feel like a distant descendent of "Fizheuer Zieheuer" even if that wasn't the idea. Bug makes it all sound perfectly copasetic, yet again.
Published /
Wed, 08 Oct 2008
Buy Steve Bug - Bugnology 3 at
  
Tracklist: Steve Bug - Bugnology 3
01. AntonZap - Captain Storm
02. Federico Molinari - Enerverende
03. Tigerskin - Peter's Secret Weapon
04. Moodymanc - Preacher (Bum Bum Drum Dub)
05. Santiago Salazar - Materia Obscura
06. Two Armadillos - Hamlin
07. George Kagais - The Beginning
08. Manuel Tur - Vabanque (Stimming Remix)
09. Pigon - Helios
10. Peace Division - Get Over It
11. Lee Jones - Weisses Kaninchen
12. The Per Eckbo Orchestra - Kodo Verano
13. Daso & Pawas - Det (Schatrax Remix)
14. Sven U.K. & Andomat 3000 - O Moresi
15. Ripperton & Alex Attias - The Last Hour
16. Damian Schwartz - 1568 Drexel Ave
17. Ben Klock - Steady Plus
18. Adultnapper - Madeleine
19. Matthias Meyer - Tout Va Bien
20. Kink & Neville Watson - Inside Out
21. October - Invitation | 
