philip sherburne

Ewan Pearson, the man behind some of the more crackerjack remixes to come along lately (including Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence," Closer Musik's "1 2 3 No Gravity," and -- soon come -- Feist's "Inside and Out"), kindly gave me permission to repost his monthly "Enthusiasm" chart for January 2005. I've only heard three of the below tunes, which bothers me to no end. (As for the Feist mix, it's a blissed-out, graceful dub with vocals so holy that it's not just bananas, it's plantainsong.) Now I have to go wipe up the drool spill on my desk.

Ewan Pearson: Enthusiasm
5.1.2005

1. morane - the beach / let me out [perlon]

the first fruits of a new project from markus nikolai, 'the beach' is a shuffling clavinet funk track, but it's overshadowed by 'let me out' on the b-side, which sounds something like captain beefheart with a house beat. slightly shambolic electric guitar, an affecting vocal and german disco stylings punctuated by very free chords every now combine to make this the freshest record I've heard in months.

it's not going to be an easy sell or sequence amongst the legion of tiefschwarz-a-likes clogging racks and record boxes at the moment but variety is the spice of life and records like this need to be played. and quick.

2. the visitors - the race (henrik schwarz remix) [playhouse]

the shiny detroit original has been out before on their own polish label; henrik schwarz's new school analogue house version is a brand new and quite fantastic track in itself. epic like carl craig at his best, with slap bass, organs and electronic pianos and then a ridiculous chicago ending to cap it all.

3. rammstein - keine luste (black strobe remix) [?]
black strobe - receive / play [?]

just in case you think i've gone all noodly it's time to scare the horses. the strobe give it their heaviest since 'ghostrack' with a remix of rammstein (!) and their own new single is another ebm belter. take your punishment...

4. mr negative - evacuate! [fine]

no gallic misanthrope on vocals this time out, just straight up dancefloor action. available in brutal electro and more playful italo versions, both sides rock the spot, though the latter is my favourite. arpeggiators set to stun.

5. trentemoeller - physical fraction [audiomatique]

bleepy minimal 118bpm (hooray!) electronic throb. they used to call this trance dance. quite a long time ago now, it must be said.

6. dirt crew - largo (dominic eulberg mix) [dirt crew]

the new wunderkind on the block strikes again; I actually prefer this to his ace roman flügel remix, but what do I know? played loud it pushes all the right buttons anyhow.

7. riton - closer / walk on water [get physical]

mr smithson goes to germany. take your pick from emotive vocal techno and
green velvet-ish chicago stylings. sehr güt.

8. lcd soundsystem - disco infiltrator [dfa]

james murphy brings the adenoidal party funk.

9. faithless - miss u less see u more (switch version) [cheeky]

been around for ages, but I can't stop playing this. wonky swinging house that kills everytime it's played out. best thing they've done since 'get your dub on'.

10. freaks - tweeker [mff]

"got any techno?"

11. feist - inside and out (pearson and usher remixes) [phonogram]

Last but not least some shameless self-promotion. feist was on two of my favourite albums of last year - Kings of Convenience "Riot on an Empty Street" and her own sublime "Let It Die". After being unable to schedule a mix of "Mushaboom" in time for release, me and Al Usher have mixed the Bee Gees cover "Inside and Out". There's a full bells and whistles vocal version: 104 BPM boogie with a dash of early Frankie Knuckles and for those of you that can't or won't there's an Ableton-munched electro-disco dub pushing the tempo to a hasty 117BPM. Hope you like.