Hard deep and odd

VA052 Avatism - Adamant Remixes I

Vinyl release date: 25.11.
Beatport release date: 09.12.

So here I am, happily an album older, introducing the first of Adamant's remix packages.

Since the whole project was, generally-speaking, "a personal affair" and a lot of the album was not necessarily "club-ready" (does that even make sense?), we invited our friends on board to do the dirty deeds for me and rework my sounds into something normal people can dance to.

First up are Mind Against. I've known these guys for a long time, and despite them being somewhat "new" to the scene, I clearly remember them fiddling around with cheap cracked software like the rest of us Milanese idiots around the same time. Matured into true synth magicians, they've been years in the making and, if you ask me, it shows.

Next is Alex Smoke, who I believe needs no introduction. Probably one of my biggest influences, I have been a fan for ages and he is the reason I discovered Vakant. In case you've been living under a rock, after a little break he's now back with a bang, responsible for probably one of the year's best LPs (as Wraetlic), an outstanding EP on the legendary R&S and now this. I've had the pleasure of finally meeting and hanging out with Alex a few times while we were both living in Berlin and I have to say he's exactly as awesome. His remix totally destroys my original, which I thought sounded "fat" but now sounds like a skinny girl in Barbie clothes in comparison.

Lake People (actually just one Lake Person, Martin Enke) is another really nice guy who just happens to make great music. After months of people telling me I should check his stuff out, mentioning we had a lot of things (sound-wise) in common, I had the pleasure of playing after him in Paris. His liveset totally rocked the place and I've been a fan since, so it was a pleasure to have him on board.

Last but not least, new Vakant boys Sons of Tiki round off the package with a club-oriented version of "Blackened".

I guess that's all. I'm not very good at this marketing hype thing, and upon re-reading this it actually made little sense, nor is it particularly inviting. Whatever the case I hope you enjoy listening, playing or partying to this as much as we did making it: I assure you the music is better than this writing.

T

Preorder 12"

Avatism - Mastodon (Mind Against Remix)

12" release date: 27.01. / Beatport release date: 10.02.

Quantum Entanglement is one of the strangest phenomena in the Universe, overcoming barriers of space and time and knitting the entire cosmos into an integrated whole.

Fin Greenall (Fink, Sideshow) and myself Lee Jones (Hefner, MyMy) met at college in the early nineties and played a lot of chess to the soundtrack of Aphex Twin and Future Sound of London. Fin taught me the guitar. I taught Fin Cubase. We shared our first releases together as EVA on Kickin' Records, then Ninja Tune. I started a band, Hefner, while Fin was mainly a DJ. Then we switched. Fin became a singer-songwriter, I moved to Berlin and formed MyMy with Nick Höppner, then started to DJ.

We followed our own paths which have often crossed, remixing each other's music, helping each other with our writing, and releasing on Aus Music (which Fin started with Will Saul), but we've always wanted to really collaborate again.

Between my studio in Berlin, Fin's studio in Brighton, and various studios, hotels and airports around the world, that project has finally taken the shape of Quantum Entanglement. Two separate worlds linked by friendship and a feeling that goes back to those early days of ambient, dub, chess and incense, now made possible by the internet. Files, old tracks, samples and words are flying back and forth, eventually forming 2 versions of a song. Heads and Tails. Question and Response. Move and Counter-Move. The game has begun.

Lee Jones, Berlin, October 2013

Hard deep and odd

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