Crustation were a short-lived trip-hop group with ties to Portishead and Massive Attack; their 1997 single "Flame" was a perfectly nice, totally innocuous, and mostly forgettable contribution to the drowsy downbeat catalog. The journeymen producers Mood II Swing put their characteristically light, funky touch on a club-friendly remix of the song, as they did hundreds of times during their run as New York's most dependable remixers. But Mood II Swing also had a murkier, more abstracted side; you can hear it in productions like "Move Me," "The Slippery Track," and the eerie "Inhale," which sounds like Gary Numan's "Cars" being sucked through a Teflon wormhole. But they outdid themselves on the "Borderline Insanity Dub" of "Flame," lacing a skipping, proto-U.K.-garage beat with hiccupping vocal loops and a lithe, shadowboxing bass line; the icing on the cake comes courtesy of a swirling fog of vocal harmonies that pans from speaker to speaker. Running out of phase with the beat, it lends a sense of tidal ebb-and-flow, throwing the time deliriously out of joint. The fact that Mood II Swing never produced anything else quite like it only makes this fluid, enveloping tune all the more irreplaceable. P.S.

Crustation - Flame (Mood II Swing Borderline Insanity Dub Mix)

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Crustation - Flame (Mood II Swing Borderline Insanity Dub Mix)

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