Len Faki returns with “Fusion Remixes 01/03” for a hand-picked, star-studded remix album in his first of the Fusion Remixes series and for release on his own label, Figure.
After last summer’s 8×12″ vinyl album release of Fusion, which was a personal exploration and diversifying approach for Berlin’s Len Faki, the artist comes back again with his first of the Fusion Remixes series out on his own Figure imprint.
Last year saw Len Faki take on a sort of self-compilation of different styles within himself with his “Fusion” album, even delving into what some would label as Raw Trance with the track “Hymn”. But if you’ve known Len Faki since the days of his “Mekong Delta”, then you know that the man knows his way around a synth line. What’s more, he seems to even know where exactly the line you cross between Techno with a melodic line, so-called “Melodic Techno”, Progressive house, and Trance. Len Faki has always used synths in a way that has complimented the rhythm and groove rather than taken away from it—still treading that line while keeping it Techno.
The easiest way to do this is evidenced in Arthur Robert’s Remix of “Voices,” where the synths glide longer over the bars in a disembodied sort of way, and the bassline, while it is rather Trance-y, really blurs the line when the kick is placed next to it. The remix of “Space Cowboys” by Pangea also follows a rather progressive aesthetic but again straddles the line between the two worlds of Techno and Progressive, keeping the synths hypnotic while also progressing the melodic elements. Another example on the release is the remix of “Friedrichshain Funk” by Polygonia, where the progressions take a long time before they change. In essence, it is the musical example of the separation of progression that keeps things Techno. If given enough time between progressions, your ear resets and re-tonicizes the root (a musical invention that seemingly only Benjamin Damage has explored as of last year).
The rest of the “Fusion Remixes 01/03” album is nice and pure straightforward Techno with Ashley Phase (aka Ø [Phase]) highlighting Len Faki’s brilliantly referenced engineering with a bassline drone hum that sounds something like creating different ohm loads on a live electrified cable. His Roog Unit compatriot Luke Slater is also on this album under his alias Planetary Assault Systems giving us nothing but pure, true-to-style vibes on the remix of “Yantra”.
Truncate, who offers his stripped-down aesthetic once more, has been going less for tools-based Techno and developing more and more of a Robert Hood and Dan Bell-style Minimalism that has his own funky signature to it. In contrast to the original, “It’s Time (To Move Your Body)” which is a crunchy tech-drenched Deep House track, Truncate takes the original funky feels and cuts it down to compressed little bites while adding DBX Midwest bleeps.
The outlier on the album is a remix by Djrum which plays off the halftime or slomo original “Don’t Be Stupid Day” and scales it up to kind of insane proportions. It seems reminiscent of the brain food cuisine Nadia Struiwigh has been serving up. Will we see a lot more of this in the future? Who knows, but electronic music culture has been playing it safe for too long. The idea of scaling tricks shouldn’t just be limited to Breakbeats.. or should it?
In closing, this “Fusion Remixes 01/03” album is a great chance to dive deep into the minds of the various remix artists, maybe even pick apart styles and see where they diverge from the originals. What makes Len Faki’s music what it is and for example, Luke Slater’s Music what it is, is definitely wrapped up in the parameters, influences, and interests of the artists. Since this album is an installment, one wonders who will show up next? For that, we’ll have to stay tuned.
– Sean Ocean
Check out Dirty Epic music recommendations here.
Listen to our podcasts here.
Find out more about our Events here.
Listen to our review picks here.
