D.Ramirez featuring TC - With Me Or Against Me

A collaboration between electro house star D.Ramirez and drum ‘n’ bass producer/DJ TC was always going to be something to treat with caution – and especially so when its TC doing the vocals (his own ‘Rockstar’ doesn’t really inspire massive confidence in his singing voice). What we have here is a very standard electro house track with a rubbery, uplifting bassline, unremarkable beats, and a pretty naff vocal from TC. “You’re so sexy?” I think not. There are actually some parts of the vocal that sound pretty decent after enough studio trickery – but the chorus/bridge bits aren’t great, and although his voice turns out to be capable enough, it doesn’t carry the track.
 
Tocadisco’s on fire at the moment, and it’s very much all about his instrumental mix on this one. Thudding kick drums underpin minute FX snippets and deep rumbling bass, before rhythmic, ticking clicks and driving, sinister shaker rhythms and driving, open hats start to build the rhythm up. It’s very much a layer-by-layer affair, with great percussion and a kind of bouncy techno feel. You want just put a saddle on it and ride it. D.Ramirez’s mate Kristoph goes for a bit of a nu-rave feel in the breakdown with euphoric, flanging guitar style chords and some crashing live-sounding drums pummeling away – before we slam down into sassy, sexy beats and gruff, rolling guitar bass. The vocal is used as well as it could be and there’s some great drum/percussion fills to boot. Finally, Infinitze go for skippy, minimal percussion and bleeps and muffled bass, keeping it deep before plunging us into a deep, sparkling breakdown that wouldn’t sound out of place in Atlantis.
 
A weak track saved by a great remix package.