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...
No comments:
Post a Comment