City Slang Vinilo y CD

Review: Ahead of his massively popular third album under the Caribou alias, Dan Snaith was quite generous in his praise for James Holden and regularly explained in interviews how Swim was influenced musically by the music on his Border Community imprint. It's seems natural then that Holden would be called on to provide a remix of "Bowls" which is quite rightly bound to get draped in words such as epic, grandiose and colossal. Taking up nearly all the blackness on the B Side, Holden crafts an 11 minute reimagination which rivals his legendary Nathan Fake remix for all round awesomeness. Taking elements of the already distinctive original, Holden twists and moulds them into a kaleidoscopic pattern of sounds which transcends genre pigeon holing.

Review: Remixes of To Rococo Rot from Four Tet and a Daniel Miller/Gareth Jones collaborative effort line up either side of this City Slang 12"; released in anticipation of the label priming a much needed reissue programme of the three LPs the Berlin trio released with them. Both Four Tet and Mute founder Miller are long term aficionados of To Rococo Rot and their efforts here will also feature on a bonus disc of material that City Slang are releasing as part of an extensive box set, though these two remixes truly belong on 12 inch vinyl. You can tell how much of a fan Four Tet is, as his remix of "He Loves Me", a track from the band's 1997 archetypal release Veiculo, retains the trio's minimalist origins yet masterfully teases out all new glistening melodic intricacies - the unrestrained female cheer towards the end does sound amusingly out of place however. Complementing this, Miller and Jones rework "The Amateur View" into what they have quite aptly described as a "Krautrock disco truck".