In February 2013 Leslie Von Dees told me he joined two of his friends to run a new recordlabel, a netlabel called CroRoom Recordings, based in Hungary. He sent me the Soundcloud link for two tracks from a young Hungarian artist named Miss Kiss, and asked if i could do a remix together with Cat (aka CXXXVI) on one, and maybe a solo remix on the other track. I suggested that "Sinus" would be the track i do with Cat. This track got a quite unusual if not to say weird bassline going through and i knew this going to be a challenge to do a proper remix of it.
It took a while until he could send me the sound material. Beginning of March 2013 i started the work. Unlike other times i didn't put lots of new or different drums to it but instead used her drum sounds and rearranged them to a breakbeat that is typical for electro tracks. I put more emphasis on added synth lines, as my intention was to go with this hallmark bassline, leave it unchanged (only with a slight effect on it), and put it into a new context, so that it would form new harmonies with the added synths/chords/guitarsounds. This way i wanted to provide a solid ground for Cat's vocals. As usual she did a great job on the lyrics for the track. My guess was that the title Sinus referred to the sinus curve, but Cat sticked to the other meaning of sinus, the anatomical one, and created a song about being allergic to this world, and thus having sinus congestion and difficulties to breathe. And so we did a video to it that matched the issue.
When we had sent the track to Leslie he wrote us back that Miss Kiss and also his colleagues at CroRoom recordings were quite confused with our remix, as they were not familiar with live sung vocals. In the usual deep house tracks the vocals are samples that are played like a synth, where as Cat does a rather free interpretation in her live singing to the track, inspired by blues, sometimes going off beat, stretching words etc. If you have listened to our tracks you will know what i mean. Leslie is a real musician (he had played the trumpet for quite some time) and appreciates and loves our work, including this remix, but the decision on whether the remix would be accepted for Miss Kiss' release was on her in the first place. Well, no matter, we put the music clip on my Youtube channel and got good feedback for it. Check it out below and if you like you can download it using the link.
Click to download "Miss Kiss - Sinus (THE WEB & CXXXVI Remix) VIDEO"
(mp4, H.264 - 720p HD, 320kbps, 257 MB) (mediafire)
Yoshiyuki Ota - Feel The Sun (THE WEB Remix)
Since beginning of 2013 Yoshiyuki Ota had a real boost in producing tracks, he got involved with different net labels (CroRoom, Ambber, Mystic Carousel, Emerald & Doreen). Late March 2013 he asked me if i would do a remix of the title track for his new release "Feel The Sun" on the German label Emerald & Doreen Recordings. I had listened to the original and didn't hesitate a second to say yes of course - the track was perfect for doing a WEB remix on it, i could expand it adding my drumwork while keeping the original sound and mood. Yoshi was very happy with the result too and so the remix was included in the release. The release was featured on itunes Japan in the House genre.
Of course i also wanted to do a nice videoclip for my remix. Watch, listen and Feel The Sun!
Click for listen/preview "Yoshiyuki Ota - Feel The Sun EP (EDR013)" on Emerald & Doreen Recordings
Ultrahigh - In My Heart (THE WEB Remix)
Ultrahigh are Cem Oral - better known as Jammin' Unit (or together with Dr.Walker as Air Liquide) and Roger Cobernuss - known as Kerosene. In the early 90ies, the golden age of Techno, they were well known in Germany and beyond. Their 1994 Ultrahigh album "The view of Ultrahigh" was and still is one of my fav album. For my YouTube channel i wanted to use a track from Jammin' Unit (called "Superflyer") for a videoclip and asked Cem for permission. He replied to my email and said he would be glad if i uploaded the track with a nice clip. Later i also used some Ultrahigh tracks that i love ("Killerbees Of Guatemala", "Cemetry Bells") and got into contact with Roger as well. I then also did videoclips for their older band project "Zulutronic" as they re-released a "best of" in 2012 and for artists on Roger's label Athletikk Berlin (Minimal Widget, Lars Sommerfeld).
When i had uploaded a nice videoclip to Ultrahigh's ambient experimental track "In My Heart" (the starter of the "View Of..." album), using footage that i filmed out of the Tower Eye in Sydney during my holidays 2012, my friend TruthseekerUK commented on the clip that this would be a nice track to do a Drum'n'Bass remix of. I thought he was right and that it was a good idea. Next day i saw that Roger had answered the comments and said "a remix would be great - but i am afraid that the files are no more available". I had done remixes of tracks using the whole track before so i said i will try and see if it worked out. It did. And when i sent the final remix to Cem and Roger they said it was great and could be on a release together with the original. I just thought wow that would be so cool. Roger said he'd ask some guys for another remix on it and then release it, but he was quite busy at that time so they decided to go with my remix only. That was another wow! It doesn't mean i will make money with it but it's such a great honour and appreciation of my work. Awesome :-)
Of course i did my best on the videoclip for the remix. As with the original i chose footage from Sydney and treated it with effects so it's in 'Ultrahigh colour'. You can watch and listen below.
