Products

Little Nobody - COMMIX

ARTIST: Little Nobody
ALBUM: COMMIX

LABEL: Plaza In Crowd
CAT#: PIC-026
BARCODE: 4025858576466

GENRE: Dance/Electronic
RELEASE: 2011-07-08

DESCRIPTION:
"It promises an escape that sounds anything but idyllic, as terse robot voices intone the title phrase over stuttering, minimalist break beats… a leftfield electronic delight that's well worth getting hold of."Thus assessed esteemed journalist Chris Downton two years ago in a glowing review that appeared in the pages of Aussie music mag 3D World. The subject? Little Nobody's iconic (and often equally iconoclastic) track ‘Get Away From It All'.Little Nobody – in fact Australian expat Andrez Bergen, who's been based in Tokyo these past 10 years – then decided to ask Justin Robertson (Lionrock) to remix. While counting on Robertson's experience rebooting Björk, Happy Mondays, Fatboy Slim, Luke Slater and Felix Da Housecat, Andrez is also a long-time fan and suspected the mix-master would have an absolute field day here – which he apparently did, giving the ingredients a good hearty shake and delivering a concoction that stunned everybody.This tale tells the story of the other remixes you'll find here. These producers are artists Andrez personally digs and admires, they're often mates as well, and there's a cameraderie of spirit that binds the lot together.While the sounds may be disparate – just like Little Nobody's own output – the key here is a revitalizing look at the real adventure of electronic music; of redefining the genre in a playful, inventive manner.Hence we have contributions from people as diverse as techno man-of-the-moment James Ruskin (Blueprint), Sativae and Tresor veteran Dave Tarrida, old school pioneer Mijk van Dijk, and Japanese guru Captain Funk (Sublime), the superbly iconoclastic Si Begg (Tresor/NovaMute), and the ageless Dave Angel (R&S/Rotation).Then there's Japanese DJ/producer Shin Nishimura of Plus Tokyo, who's often mentioned in the same sentence as Ken Ishii and Takkyu Ishino and was picked up for release through Dubfire's SCI+TEC label in 2009. Here he gets down-and-dirty in a tech remix of ‘Poiseworks'.The two remixes of ‘Compulsion' have their own story to tell. When Little Nobody's original ‘Compulsion' was unleashed in 2009, there was some gloriously wayward feedback, with some souls saying it sounded like Underground Resistance (Steve Stoll) or Suburban Knight (Captain Funk, Dave Tarrida), and others even the Art Of Noise (Anthony Shakir). Still more, like Patrick Pulsinger, Ben Mill and Kirk Degiorgio, called it just plain cool.So Andrez (again) got curious to see what like-minded producers would do with the same sound-sources, and chose a bunch of his favourite musicians – including Japan's DJ Wada (Co-Fusion) and wonky electronic-funk wizards Donk Boys (Dirtybird). What transpired was a stunning, sweeping, genre-crunching reinterpretation, and the reaction to the remixes was gushing. "Just a quick e-mail to let you know that this release is a killer!" declared Claude Young straight after he heard DJ Wada's mix.Now let's adjust the rear-view mirror and flash back a bit.In 1995, Andrez had a radio show on 3PBS FM in Melbourne (Australia) called Cyberdada, and that year the most-played record – amidst killer 12-inches from Relief, Axis, Tresor, Trope, and Force Inc – was actually a double-CD from Austrian label Cheap.It was called 90 Minutes in the Eyes of iO, produced by label bosses Patrick Pulsinger and Erdem Tunakan. Bergen says that the release floored him, and Pulsinger has continued on as a mainstay influence in Little Nobody's musical reference pallette ever since, via the Austrian producer's own output (on labels like Disko B, Compost, Studio !K7, R&S, and International DJ Gigolo) as well as some of his brilliant remixes of people like DJ Hell, Chicks On Speed, Tosca, Tanzmusik and Ken Ishii.Which brings us up-to-scratch, and Bergen's Funk Gadget persona. In a recent review, Fun In The Murky scribe Trevor Wilkes described the Funk Gadget track ‘Blah Blah' as "Broken, bass-heavy beats and a wobbly synth; this one was felt two floors away when I first fired 'er up."So when it came to choosing a remixer, Pulsinger's name was at the very top of Andrez's list – and now we know why. His mix is all wonderful bleeps, mesmerizing glitches, and chunky, sci-fi electro-tech grooves.TOKYO 2011

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