After The Sun And The Neon Light, many were pleased to hear that the Booka train was back up and rolling again upon listening to More! last year. Scaramanga marks the fourth and last single from that album, and a cursory glance over the remix roster would tell people what to expect: lots of Cocoon-friendly big room mayhem, whether that's along a floorfilling but respectable Systematic slant with Dusty Kid and sometime partner Marascia, proggier stuff from Schadenfreude and names from various other camps that balance street cred with playability. Such a glance might also raise the question in the mainstream-phobic mind of whether this might lead to simply a handful of unremarkable electro smashers.
Thankfully, though, the quality's high. There are, for sure, acerbic patches aplenty here. Hey Today! assume a twitchy yet weighty riff upon which various boinks and twangs do the rounds. Reset Robot have searing swipes of futurism permeated with white noise, chopping together with ambiguous souly vowels in a heady disorientation. The best bits, though, are the deep ones. Dusty Kid plays it deep techno by the book—dual chord stabs, straightforward techstep, same souly vocal bits—but rarely is the book followed so well.
Schadenfreude scores similarly in creating Balearic late-night trippiness. Congas hiccup, sounding unlike very many other congas I've heard. In fact, Booka's harpsichord-rippling bumper is perhaps the least unique on the main release. You don't have to pay for Longares, Marascia and Gainsford—they're available on blogs. That makes sense, as although along the same lines as the main remixes, they're less interesting. Nevertheless, they're decent tagalongs, and many jocks slanted towards this kind of electro/house/techno will find a home for more than a couple in this collection.
Buy Booka Shade - Scaramanga Remixes EP at
  
Tracklist: Booka Shade - Scaramanga Remixes EP
 A1 Scaramanga (Booka's Manga Mix)
A2 Scaramanga (Reset Robot Remix)
B Scaramanga (Dusty Kid Remix)
Digital: Scaramanga (Hey Today! Remix)
Digital: Scaramanga (Schadenfreude Remix)
Digital: Scaramanga (Longares Remix)
Digital: Scaramanga (Marascia Remix)
Digital: Scaramanga (Gainsford Remix)
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