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VARIOUS ARTISTS, "8, 8.5, 9 REMIXES"

Various Artists isallegedly the name of this duo of highly regarded producers who wish toremain anonymous. This limited edition CD release from FatCat featuresthe three tracks, "no. 8", "no. 8.5" and "no. 9" along with remixes ofeach by Arovane, Funkostrung, Autechre, Pole and Monolake.
It'sheralded as a discount priced CD for the American export, but inactuality it's more like discount music. An entire half hour is takenup by these three long and boring pre-remixed tracks. The loopingelectronic echo-fest of few tones and clicks isn't entirely excitingand seems to go on nearly forever. An Autechre remix sounds fine, yetit's typical Autechre, as they're getting way too predictable and thistrack sounds too similar to much of their other stuff. Of course mostpeople will buy this disc for that mix and listen through the othertracks less times than they can count on one hand. The weak Pole remixleaves the first track almost entirely unchanged and has me stretchingfor the skip button after the first 4 minutes. Monolake's probably themost notable remix on here as they added much more space and depth to8.5 than existed in the unmixed version. They stretched out the 1.5minute track into a good 9.5 minutes of pretty, atmospheric bliss. Itmakes me wonder about the validity of some labels whose existencerevolves around releasing of remixes and new tracks of pre-existingbands. Take everything into account and it's okay for a discount price,but don't pay more than $10 for it.