Luv Jam - Piranha (The Remixes)

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  • A. Cole, known in underground house circles for his fearlessly weird tracks as Luv Jam, was at his most anthemic last year with "Piranha," a minimalist bomb with teeth as sharp as its title suggests. A track as peculiar as this one by an artist as distinctive as Luv Jam will require a group of remixers willing to take as wily an approach to production as the original artist, and on that point, the package Black Sheep has assembled misses the mark a bit. Piranha - The Remixes has some great ideas, but its band of unknowns either plays it a little safe or goes for something stranger that might be recommendable. Maxim Lany and Dave James's remixes fall into the former category. Lany (born Maxime Neslany) has the highest profile of anyone featured here, and his brittle house reinvention has a certain confidence to it, if the end result is a little conservative. James, known for his party Freq!, maintains Luv Jam's sparseness, but in streamlining the original's quirky musicality into straightforward techno, he's lost something of the original's essence. The mysterious Molybdendum turns in by far the most interesting mix, taking liberties with the original material his colleagues were perhaps too meek to attempt. Filled to the brim with far-flung ideas (non sequitur vocals, pan-happy mixdown), it's not perfect by any means, but at least it keeps us guessing. Tony Cannon's remix pulls from the producer's old-school influences, lending it a very different sort of weirdness that could be quite effective in the right context. Still, none of the remixers quite capture the mystique of Luv Jam's original, though this package may point those who missed it the first time around in the right direction.
  • Tracklist
      01. Piranha (Maxim Lany Remix) 02. Piranha (Dave James Remix) 03. Piranha (Molybdendum Remix) 04. Piranha (Tony Cannon Remix)
RA