Search - Velvet Acid Christ, Funker Vogt :: Remix Wars Strike 4

Intense and essential industrial bloodshed

ixion75 | 01/25/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"While this short cd (approx. 35 minutes) is import priced, it is worth it. Bryan Erickson of Velvet Acid Christ and Gerrit Thomas of Funker Vogt come together to do battle on this excellent and amazing disc. The idea behind "The Remix Wars" is that two artists come together to remix 3 of the other artist's tracks. The results from the series range from the quirkily mediocre to the superb, and it is a safe bet that this edition, "strike 4," may be the best one of them all.Erickson's attack has been dubbed "splatter-industrial," a confusing yet strangely appropriate term which alludes to the sample-heavy, drenched layers of sonic gore that VAC is capable of. Erickson at his best keeps the sequencing tight and thick at the same time. His treatment of 3 Funker Vogt tunes from their album _Execution Tracks_ is an affair of both nastiness and grandeur. In his hands the anti-war themes are brought to the fore with eerie samples of WW2 Nazi Germany, coating the sound with an atmosphere of battlefield chaos, an electronic interpretation of total war. Funker Vogt's main synth lines are kept and the beat hardened, providing for memorable histrionics. VAC seems to work even better as a remixer-- some of his remix work rivals not only his own pieces but the originals themselves.Funker Vogt rely on straightforward yet catchy EBM that is on the heavy and deft side. While not the antithesis of VAC by a long shot, the band mostly forsakes uptempo schreeching for mid-tempo harmonics, developing and refining VAC's original tracks as they go along. Thomas' mixes are slightly longer than Erickson's but display just as much creativity, taking the main parts and synthlines and effectively Funker-izing VAC's material, making it sound less frenzied and disturbing and more off-kilter and throbbing.VAC and Funker Vogt mesh better than anyone could have anticipated. The two share the same propulsive sensibilities and yet still find ways to add to each other's sound while at the same time attempting to "outmix" the other. The intensity and power of these six tracks even after repeated listens remains high. This disc is looked favorably upon by both artists and it is one cd that each band's fans will want to listen to, if only to compare notes and marvel at the answers each gentleman comes up with."