Premiere: Pleasurekraft invoke Noir and Spektre for their debut album’s official remix EP
It’s safe to attest that the techno community at-large, if not unanimously, would consider 2018 to be a banner year for Pleasurekraft. After years of honing their brand of cosmic techno, the transnational duo finally released their debut album, the momentous Friends, Lovers, & Other Constellations. Alongside this career milestone, Kaveh Soroush and Kalle Ronngardh backed a number of spectacular releases from artists with a similarly acute taste for the genre on their Kraftek imprint, ensuring that the sonic fountain never ran dry for their global audience.
As Soroush and Ronngardh calibrate their astral trajectory for 2019, they are revisiting the strategies — and the music — which ensured their success last year; On January 25, Kraftek will release a remix EP for their seminal album, featuring a smorgasbord of familiar Kraftek signees alongside likeminded heavyweights. Ahead of the EP’s official debut, Dancing Astronaut is proud to present two exceptional efforts from Noir and Spektre.
While this release will mark Noir’s virginal contribution to Kraftek, he is anything but a newcomer to the techno realm. Over the past 15 years, the veteran Danish producer has been instrumental in advancing underground dance music through his umbral, often acidic productions. Fittingly, his remix takes on one of the original album’s more retro-inspired selections, “The Razor’s Edge.” Centering his interpretation around Pleasurekraft’s melodic elements and vocal samples, Noir reaffirms the veracity of his moniker via menacing bass-lines, haunting staccato synthesis, and ever-dominant percussion.
British techno bellwethers Spektre are no strangers to Kraftek. Indeed, Pleasurekraft selected the duo to provide their label’s final EP of 2018, Back into Consciousness, the lead single of which still sits comfortably near the top of Beatport’s techno chart two months after its release. Rightfully, Spektre take the reins to transform one of the most remarkable tracks from Friends, Lovers, & Other Constellations. On the album, G.O.D. (Gospel of Doubt) is split across two parts — a mellifluous introduction and a chaotic club opus, each revolving around a TED talk of the same name by writer Casey Gerald. Channeling the dark exuberance of their recent Kraftek release, Spektre dispense with formalities and dive right into a raucous techno offering. Built on a foundation of quaking percussion and classic, overpowering rave synth-work, Spektre’s remix never falters in energy, and succeeds in the lofty task of doing justice to Pleasurekraft’s original.
Preorder the remix EP here, and revisit the original LP — one of our Top 10 albums of 2018 — below.
Categories: Music