Farben & James Din A4 - Farben presents James Din A4 (2014)

Really enjoying this new album made up of remixes by Farben (a.k.a. Jan Jellinek) remixing the works of James DIN A4, which has just popped up on Farben’s Faitiche label. Opener “Kader Dolls” intros with background noise from a party before string stabs fade in and everything transforms into charming, extremely wonky house. “Heimkehr der Vulgaren” follows and is made up of sampled organ stabs and regular vocal samples. The percussion is really funky and occasionally stops/starts to reset the track into a new groove. One to keep the DJ’s on their toes! The fourth track, “Lucifer Rising”, is extremely slow but comparatively simple in structure compared with what has come before; it’s a beautiful, floating narcotic lullaby heavy on late-night atmosphere. Sound good pitched up as well!
On the B-side, “Please Excuse My Face” is glitchy microhouse with a real head-nodding groove and funky bassline. “Krieghelm Hundwasser” is funky as hell with its chopped-up vocals, inventive percussion and heavily filtered atmospherics in the background, all underpinned by a kick which is one of the few instances of a steady 4/4 pulse on the album. “Fahles Graz” is held together by a single modulated percussion loop, around which Jellinek drops all sorts of discordant stabs and heavily processed samples. Closer “Helfen In Sitzen” is more slo-mo mellow madness, with a groove that periodically seems to almost trip over itself and filtered chords that modulate in pitch unpredictably. There are also four extremely short interlude pieces which would have probably been better saved for the CD version.