Xhin - Cutlass
LABEL: Stroboscopic Artefacts
CAT#: SA011
BARCODE: 4025858588971
GENRE: Dance/Electronic
RELEASE: 2011-11-04
DESCRIPTION:
'Cutlass' is the 12" that precedes 'Sword' Xhin's forthcoming full-length album on Stroboscopic Artefacts. Four tracks from the album have been selected and spliced into completely new forms by four producers with very separate agendas. The minds, computers and analogue tools of Surgeon, Dadub, Pfirter and Perc have extracted new visions from Xhin's 'Sword' with nothing short of scientific precision. On A1 Surgeon takes the gnashing dance floor focus of 'Teeth' and grinds down the straight-up beats into oblique fragments. In this obscure realm unknown sounds slither together in the background, and what could be a plane in take-off could equally be the papery rumple of an accordion. And what Surgeon creates is deeply hypnotic. Dadub shift the axis that 'Foreshadowed' was build around; it becomes tilted by the weight of a dub-filled undercarriage. A2 is anchored in a strange atmosphere and documents an oddly liminal state. The track hinges at the tense cusp of something about to happen, but doesn't reveal the whole story, this is just the prologue. On the flipside Pfirter moulds the gnarling 'Vent' and makes it brutal. Pfirter galvanizes the track adding 4/4 at its hardest, its most indestructible. For B1 he submerges parts of the 'Vent' letting driving dissonance come to the fore. The vinyl is closed by Perc's reinvention of 'Inside'. On B2 the original's jangles become offbeat claves, and what was a dream-like state becomes one of disorientation. Perc artfully carves into a deep, diaphanous landscape and amid strange bleeps and fizzles of static something crystallizes, and its something regretful. A cutlass just like a sword but with a slightly curved blade, and accordingly the way that Surgeon, Dadub, Pfirter and Perc cut into these tracks is experimental and left of the centre. The four producers' remixes uncover latent facets of 'Sword', adding not just anticipation to the release of Xhin's album, but also widening the scope of Stroboscopic Artefacts' soundscape. SA011 was craftily mastered by Artefacts Mastering, Berlin. Words: Clare Molloy
TRACKLISTING:
| Xhin - Teeth (Surgeon Remix) |
| Xhin - Foreshadowed (Dadub Remix) |
| Xhin - Vent (Pfirter Remix) |
| Xhin - Insides (Perc Remix) |