- Damon Wild and his respected Synewave label have been around since the early '90s, so it's reasonable to expect a bit of nostalgia for the label's 100th release, a remix package of his classic "Avion" from 1993. The original, included with the digital package, is a slab of peaktime 909 techno which, despite its early '90s production, still sounds sharp, and is chock-full of bright, dizzying synth arpeggios.
You could also describe it as deliriously fruity, with some kind of sweetness in its veins, and the remixers here generally extrapolate certain aspects of the track's character, while keeping a lot of the raw Roland-ness, and upping the weight—the most obvious thing about the collection being its imminent club functionality.
Marcel Dettmann takes a beat that's gravelly and body rocking and overlays a smooth, spaced out pad that contrasts with the irresistibly heavy funk in the rhythms underneath. Relative newcomer 88uw separates the heady weirdness out instead, with his remix charging more as it gets going, and ending up as a pummelling, chaotic monster. Canadian Peter Sliwinski, who has collaborated with Wild under the moniker Niteworks, does pretty much what you'd expect a guy calling himself Echoplex to do. It has more of a tight, calculated feel than the others, with maybe a bit less momentum but more piledriving; vibrating lower range, unusually wide variation of the kicks and some cool, sudden edits make this the most interesting thing here.
If it's ones and zeroes you've paid your hard-earned for, you'll also get John Mitchell's remix, which is pretty much a focused celebration of the classic Roland toys, with charging 909 drums and a nasty acid line. Not much else happens, though, so although it'd be heavy on the dance floor, a bit more variation, maybe some modulation of the synth swipe at the beginning of each bar or more defined sections would have given it more legs for its length—but as a digital tool for shorter use it does well. Jurek Przezdziecki, brought up on classical music and Scrabble, unearths a loop and does clever rhythmic inversions with it, in a modest and more chilled out way. Although showing off a bit more would perhaps have been more arresting, it's yet another fresh approach.
Tracklist A Avion Return (Marcel Dettmann Mix)
B1 Avion Return (88UW Mix)
B2 Avion Return (Echoplex Mix)
Digital: Avion Return
Digital: Avion Return (John Mitchell Mix)
Digital: Avion Return (Jurek Przezdziecki Mix)