Heartthrob - Baby Kate Remixes
Heartthrob’s “Baby Kate” was something of a summer anthem last year after its pole-position appearance on the min2MAX compilation, and while it wasn’t really all that memorable in and of itself—some routine minimal beats, a deep, bending, two-note analog riff, a few stuttering noises and little else—it worked well in everyone’s sets and that sense of space is also what likely gives it such appeal as a remix. There’s so much room to roam here, so much that can be done with a track that is essentially nothing more than a half-dressed mannequin waiting for someone to come along and drape it in their own fashion. Which is exactly what happens here across seven remixes (including some of those pesky “download only” versions, which are really starting to boil the blood of we vinyl purists), as the remixers take turns making the cut sound like their own work.
Deep breath and we’re off. Magda plays it straight by simply rearranging and tweaking the riffs and noises a bit while keeping the same general pulse and tempo of the original in what could easily be mistaken for an alternate take by Heartthrob himself. M_nus newcomer Konrad Black adds some more noises (the ones Magda left out, perhaps?) and a bit more rhythmic percolation to the pot, while Troy Pierce dispenses with the main riff altogether in favor of the sort of noises that come out of a fax machine when you’ve accidentally dialed one on the phone. Even M_nus boss Richie Hawtin takes a crack here—twice. Hawtin’s Plastikman mix is a refreshing trip down memory lane to the days of “Spastik” and “Krakpot” that keeps things low, thumping, and repetitive, with a few tweaked stabs of the original riff to break the hypnosis. Hawtin’s other mix is under his long-dormant Robotman guise (remember “Doo Da Doo”? Aw, yeah!) which follows the same rhythmic template as the Plastikman version, but with a bit more funk to it, not to mention a hi-hat and other bits of sorta housey perc. Good to hear the old boy remixing again, even if the tracks sound nearly exactly like things he did a decade ago.
As for the non-M_nus guests, they provide the more interesting and original work here. Sasha Funke gives the rhythm track a much-needed seeing to while clipping the riff into an altogether more sprightly sounding thing, while Adam Beyer and Jesper Dahlbäck up the tempo a bit and work the riff into a big, bouncy dancefloor monster with more energy than the other remixers combined. See what happens when your beat is more than a simple minimal thump in 4/4, kids?
Everything here is good if not great, but I definitely walked away wishing that more remixers with different styles had been invited to contribute, as a few of these versions tread pretty similar territory. What might, say, Audio Werner have done with these elements? Or Alan Braxe and Fred Falke? Or Radio Slave? Or, hell, the DFA? Even if they had failed miserably, the whole package would have been better served by a few more truly “different” takes. If you’re gonna bother with seven mixes, you might as well mix things up a bit more than this.
M_nus / MINUS48
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[Todd Hutlock]