Wednesday 20 October 2010

Ernie, the fastest milkman in the west...

I've got love for the man I'll call Ernie. Proper, man love. Mark Ernestus (Ernie to me and er, no-one else), was one half of Basic Channel, Main Street, Rhythm & Sound and Burial Mix, along with Moritz Von Oswald. They split up a few years back to work on their own stuff. Moritz has been working on some live projects (Moritz Von Oswald Trio) and turned in a mix for the Tony Allen remix project on Honest Jon's Records. Mark has played a few DJ sets (including a disappointing turn we attended at Plastic People last year - Ernie wasn't disappointing, just the guys who played before - just ask Buster Barlow, mucho enamoured with DJ Pete's dancefloor 'pump' move...). Ernie has however turned out some astounding remixes culminating in the latest release I'll get to in a moment... Recently:

Tony Allen - Moyege (Mark's Disco Mix/Mark's Disco Dub)

Tortoise - Gigantes Version (Mark Ernestus Remix)
Burnt Friednman & Jaki Liebzeit - 5 128-5(Mark Ernestus Remix)

All super heavy, cerebral, psychedelic cavernous 5am dancefloor monsters, stuck in the groove, mashed, evil, twisted, baked - I can't even describe. Now, comes the heaviest yet, I'll let the wordsmith's at Honest Jon's untwist my tongue:
The Basic Channel maestro takes on Konono No. 1 in his hardest, best solo mix yet, including additional percussion by Burnt Friedman. So brawling and bad-minded, dense and intense, and musically expert, it amounts to a ritual humiliation of the genre Dub Techno.

I love the original Congotronics release of Konono #1, from years back - mental home made electronic panel bashing music from darkest African townships. I wouldn't normally think a remix could better or even come close to the mental rawness of the original material, however with Ernie on the case I reckon it's feasible! My copy is in the post, and I'm not sure I've enough pairs of clean underwear to satisfy my weak bladder to withstand the wait...

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