Wednesday 8 May 2019

Shangri-Lies - Drain / Greed / Hunger (2019)


Shangri-Lies was a collaborative effort undertaken by Peter Hope with members of Chakk, Moloko and Sweet Exorcist, here with three tracks which first appeared as a 12" back in 2012, now remixed right up the wrong 'un by various New York Haunted luminaries and issued as a fell length album. The original tracks - included here, naturally - constitute killer material of a standard you would probably expect from such names who, lest we forget, had already left their respective marks indelibly stamped upon the face of techno and didn't actually need to do anything else ever again - bleeps, filters, shuffle, bass ping, that sound your PC makes just before it crashes - except pinned down to a beat…

Generally speaking I still don't really know how I feel about the remix, but whatever I feel is irrelevant in this case given the transformations effected by David Harrow and others, yielding what are essentially seven entirely new tracks. Listen close and you'll probably be able to work out where they came from, but it's not obvious without looking at the track list. I never quite know what to say about dance music because beyond whether it's good or bad, further discussion seems a little surplus to requirements; but this collection distinguishes itself by demonstrating just how far techno can be stretched, pulled, bent out of shape until it kind of resembles some Throbbing Gristle outtake, whilst - against all odds - still banging like techno rather than some tediously overproduced chill out room brainfart. It turns out to be pretty fucking far, let me tell you.

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