Empires Remixes, Part 2

First emerging on seminal UK electronica label Skam Records in 1996, Colin Cloughley aka. Anodyne hooked up with the London electronic / bass label Combat Recordings via Rob Hall. The "Empires EP" was unleashed which Boomkat describes as "some of his finest material - Listeners of a darker disposition will be in their element here, from the super-modified 'ardcore swing and epic synth vistas of 'Empire Of Dust' through Rob Hall-ready Techno on 'Empire Of Glass', and the pitch-black warehouse sound on 'Empire Of Light'. Recommended!"

The EP's parts were promptly remixed by various members of the Combat clan, giving rise to some diverse and masterful reinterpretations by absolute electronic legends Plaid, as well as highly regarded producers Anstam, Roel Funcken, Dead Fader, 214, Defekt, Lackluster, Subjex, Devilman (Scotch Egg) and rising new producers Boris Noiz and Fausten. This is part 2 of the remix digi release series.

Please note the vinyl version appears as a separate release COMBAT032.

1. Empire of Light - Boris Noiz mix

"Noiz confounds the notion that artists should stick to one idea or concept, having a seemingly clear vision on what he thinks the future should sound like. Connecting the dots between the past and present and paying deserved respect to the people who got us where we are today." - Darkfloor Twisted future hardcore rinse outs, sublime orchestration and dextrous edits define his sound, on display here with majestic Black Dog-esque strings and fierce, clattering jungle / hardcore riffage atop a massive bassdrum. Hailing from Subotica, Serbia, Boris Noiz one of the most adept new producers to join the Combat clan. Shockingly knowledgable across various disciplines, he is able to deftly switch from neo-hardcore jungle (on ScanOne's Yellow Machines label) to old skool acid house (Lost in the Sound) to skittering broken techno (his remix of Point B, championed by Surgeon and DJ Substance).

2. Empire of Glass - Plaid remix

Emerging from the release of their Scintilli album on Warp, the musical legends Plaid should need absolutely no introduction, really. We're really proud that they agreed to remix for us, and even happier that it's no less that a Plaid acid track, masterfully built and reminiscent of their 303-drenched Psil-Cosyin from their Spanners and Peel Sessions albums. The Black Dog and Plaid have heavily influenced Combat since the 90's, with their own forward-thinking take on electronic music, applying their unpredictable generative melodies and precise, ever-shifting beats to raise the standard for electro and techno production.

3. Empire of Light - Subjex remix

Subjex is the production incarnation of Matthieu Debliqui from Lille, France. The quiet frenchman's insanely warped sounds first came to our attention via a 10" on Planet Mu, followed by a string of releases on Somia, Combine, Schematic, and Detroit Underground. He also runs his own imprints Bedroom Research and In Vitro Recordings. Subjex's immaculate production is typified by spending ages laboriously working and reworking material until all sounds are interconnected on most tunes, with melodies generated by the beats themselves. Here he reworks Anodyne's Empire of Light into an epic charging beast of a track, colossal kickdrums and snarling bleeps like a giant robot gone mad, flattening whole cities before letting Anodyne's epic strings infuse the space in the 2nd half of the track.

4. Empire of Time - Defekt mix

Dublin-based DeFeKT is an Irish Electro Dj/producer influenced by future technologies, synthetic music from the influence of Kraftwerk and science fiction writer Philip K Dick. He is the only artist to remix Empire of Time, Defekt reworks the original into a rolling, warm mechanoid barrage of solid chunky electro, tense, pulsing and assured. Working to a strict discipline of "Drum machines, synths and sci-fi" he uses hardware to steadfastly champion "true" electro against the confusing glut of electro house, his music has been released via labels such as BFP, Take Over recordings, Alkalinear Recordings, New flesh records and AC records.

5. Empire of Glass - 214 mix

"Seattle resident by way of Miami, audio mulcher of the electro sound." Chris Roman aka. 214 has been pushing his own melodic, polished take on electro for near on a decade, via labels such as Mikrolux, Ai records, Digital Distortions, Outside Recordings, Touchin' Bass, Car Crash Set, Harbour City Sorrow/Clone Records, and more recently Frustrated Funk/Clone Records, Hypercolour and Fortified Audio. Having met up with Stormfield in Miami 2003, contact has been maintained ever since as both developed their own projects over the years. Predominantly performing in the US, 214 has brought his sound to the UK via performances at the Bloc Festival and releases on Andrea Parker's Touchin' Bass label.

6. Empire of Glass - Devilman mix

Devilman is a side project of DJ Scotch Egg, a Japanese producer of chiptune / gabber / industrial noise music now based in Berlin. A long time affiliate of Brighton's Wrong Music crew, he went on to release his insane output via Adaadat, Junior Aspirin Records, 3 by 3 Music and now Combat. At a recent gig in Berlin he jokingly said "I don't know how to write music, I just make distortion", but the opposite is true - he harnesses powerful analogue distortion and crafts it perfectly to absolutely devastating dancefloor effect.

"Cloughley (Anodyne) may have been absent from the scene for more than a decade, but his return is strangely timely; the Anodyne sound, while drawing on the sonic tropes of the 90s, finds touchstones with the searing industrial techno of the Downwards camp and the paranoiac bass pressure of dubstep's more screwfaced exponents. Not to mention his being embraced by the establishment figures he clearly admires, from Rob Hall of Skam to Warp stalwarts Autechre, Plaid and The Black Dog. - Angus Finlayson, The Quietus"