Santiago Salazar - Arcade

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  • Detroit producer Santiago Salazar has made some inspirational techno music either as part of Los Hermanos or on his own—including an impressive debut on his own Historia y Violencia label last year. "Arcade" may not rank as his most subtle work: it centres on a soaring electronic bassline that threatens to but never quite succeeds in drowning out the subtle melodic flourishes that have become his trademark—but its smart arranging and rich sounds are unmistakably Salazar's. Unfortunately, the remix by Stefan Goldmann promises great things but falls victim to its creator's whims. Sounding like Los Hermanos or vintage Carl Craig, its raw, shuffling drums and hissing, shaking percussion create the perfect environment for the introduction of mellow acoustic guitar riffs and spacey chords. It's at this point that Goldmann introduces the New Age pan pipes. They sound hideously out of place, but it gets worse as Asian plinky plonk textures join the arrangement to steer the remix into an ambient finale that could be the combined soundtrack to the dueling dwarves in the Stonehenge scene in Spinal Tap and a love scene in a Japanese martial arts movie. In short, an unfortunate choice of samples has ruined a potentially excellent remix. To paraphrase Blake Baxter: Stefan Goldmann: what happened?
  • Tracklist
      A Arcade B Arcade (Stefan Goldmann Mix)
RA