It’s been a while since his hefty FABRICLIVE album, three years exactly, but Meat Katie has come back and mixed up this whooping great two-disc album that is so dirty you’ll need a hazmat suit to listen to it.
From the word go it’s more gutsy grooves from the king of guts, entering with Martin Eyerer’s La Dolce Vita breaking it down and building it up with the same anticipation of Pete Heller’s Simpler: getting you to your tip-toes, ready for the break, but letting you hang. Then he chucks in an old favourite, Dubfire’s I Feel Speed (Audion Remix) and a little something he made earlier, Meat Katie – Just Don’t Break. It grows in size and the likes of Velkro & Ido Orphir’s Warehouse and The Hold’s You Can Take My Glowstick… bring some super-catchy bass lines, house beats you can tap your foot too and a few absurd noises taken from the minimal techno basket. A Juan Mclean Remix of Preset’s IGo Hard I Go Home flexes Meat Katie’s ability to cross genres in one of the standout tracks of CD1. Solead’s Giddy Down (Jamie Stevens Remix) is the closest you get to the feeling like your on-the-edge of bursting into a dance-frenzy, but CD1 still only ever feels like a warm-up and finishes unnecessarily with Apparat’s Hold On which is less of an appreciated breather, more of a dull anti-climax. It sounds like a pop song stuck on the end, and this isn’t Now 71.
Thankfully CD2 regains the momentum and after a rather weak introduction that was probably supposed to sound massive, Klovn picks up the pieces and jumps into the ring with a sturdy Dirty Deal Remix of I Want You leading into Dopamine’s Spunk that is so filthy that it lives up to its name, with buzzing synths and bending bass lines. By the time Dustbowl bursts in on Ain’t No Grave That Can Hold My Body Down it finally feels the peak this album needs to have reached to have made all the anticipation worth it has been reached. And it’s as if you’re being hit of over the head with a bass hammer with a siren going off right next to your ear, which to the wrong head would seem like a distorted mess, but as 30Hz’s Ponceand Zoo Brazil’s Technik bleed relentlessly through the stereo system with scratching, twisted bass and alarms, this amalgamation of severe sounds really needs to be appreciated. Featuring tracks from Lucio Aquilina, Lutzenkirchen and a remix from Popof CD2 climaxes in minimal techno style with chunky two-bar phrases, heavy on the hi-hats, which doesn’t stop till the end and leaves you exhausted. CD1 is competent but CD2 will blow your head off, but you need one to understand the other.
Overall, a huge electro’n’tech-fest that blurs the lines between house and breaks at times, but is ultimately concerned with brewing that in-the-club excitement. And it succeeds; I feel like I’ve had a heavy one. Where’s the Alka-Seltzer?
Track Listing
CD01:
1. Martin Eyerer - La Dolce Vita
2. Dubfire - I Feel Speed (Audion Remix)
3. Meat Katie - Just Don't Break
4. Marc Neyen - Specter's Trip (Kebale und Liebe Remix)
5. The Hold - You Can Take My Glowstick But You Don't Touch The White Glove
6. Velkro & Ido Ophir - Warehouse
7. Presets - Go I Go (Juan Mclean Remix)
8. Dustbowl - Still Burning
9. Andomat - 3000 BND2
10. DJ Vitamin D - Past Due (D's 3 AM Rehash)
11. Loco Dice - City Lights (Martin Buttrich Remix)
12. Martin Eyerer - Azul
13. Elite Force - Jack The Joint (Zodiac Cartel Remix)
14. Solead - Giddy Down (Jamie Stevens Remix)
15. Das Pop - Fool For Love (Brodinski Remix)
16. Apparat - Hold On
CD02:
1. Infadels - Can't Get Enough (Felix Da Housecat Remix)
2. Klovn - I Want You (Dirty Deal Remix)
3. Dopamine - Spunk
4. Victor Palmez - Feel Saxx (Dave Robertson & Jon Gurd Remix)
5. Hironimus - Bosch Beta (Meat Katie Remix)
6. Dustbowl - Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down
7. 30Hz - Pounce
8. Zoo Brazil - Technik
9. Uberzone & Lee Coombs - Right Now
10. Plump DJs - Disco Unusual
11. Late of the Pier - Space And The Woods (Switch Remix (Explicit)
12. Lee Coombs - Control (10 Rapid Remix)
13. The Body Snatchers - Twist Up
14. Vandal - Bad Acid (Dopamine Remix)
15. Lützenkirchen - Gimme My Chicks
16. Lucio Aquilina - Disco Bus (Roland M. Dill Remix)
17. Autophase - Bubblewrap
18. Butch 1000 - Lords (Popof Remix)
19. Hyperion (Oz) - On The Expressway