Play! 02: Paris

Oliver “H-Man” Huntemann serves up the second instalment of his Play! compilation series of live mixes (a nice idea) – this time from Paris’ legendary Rex Club.

His tailor-made Parissets the tone, with the crowd whooping and cheering under the frenetic, mind-bending, juddering minimalism of the track, and the echoing, tripped-out synth refrain. Shlomi Aber’s Sekur gets the groove going nicely, picking up where Freakside left off with jittery, detuned techy synths reverberating across the speakers and a deep, chunky, groovy bassline.

As we reach the middle of the mix, things get more and more twisted; Remote’s gnarly Allow Steady upping the electro factor, and remixes from Martinez and Friendly People keeping the groove going, but not in quite as exciting a fashion. Man-of-the-moment Popof pitches in with a heavier, subby groove on Stereos And Such before Huntemann switches back to focus on some melodies on Henneberg’s spooky Winter Dump. and the harrowing sea of twisted pads, metallic percussion, and gritty lead lines on his new track La Boum.

He finishes is off with a trippy minimal selection, culminating in Dubfire’s overrated but enjoyable glitch-fest remix of System 7’s Space Bird and the warped crescendo of his own Rekorder 0.0 under his Rekorder guise.

A good use of filters, echoes, delays and other such effects keep the mix spicy, and add to the tripped-out electronic feel of the already grotty soundscape. It’s not as memorable or as strong a mix as the first Play! volume from D-Edge in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and fans of Huntemann productions that are packed full of huge melodies and emotions may be disappointed by the albums largely minimal approach. But it’s not without its moments -and if you’re into your deep, dark, dirty, stripped back electro/techno crossover gear, it’s well worth a purchase.

Tracklist:

01 Intro - Intro
02 Oliver Huntemann - Paris
03 Clé - Nomads (Tanzmann Remix)
04 Shlomi Aber - Sekur
05 Martin Landsky - Man High
06 Penner+Muder - Millenium Falcon
07 Remote - Allow Steady
08 Spektre - Slipspace
09 Da Fresh feat. Xenia Beliayeva - Oh Boy! (Martinez Remix)
10 Friendly People - Music Is Improper
11 Popof - Stereos and Such
12 Henneberg - Winter Dump
13 Oliver Huntemann - La Boum
14 Eyerer & Klein - Körnerfresser
15 Scratch Massive - Like You Said (Chloé Remix)
16 System 7 - Space Bird (Dubfire Deep Space Remix)
17 Rekorder - Rekorder 0.0