- Don't let the Echocord logo fool you—Nick Höppner isn't making dub techno here. Though it is rather unusual to see the Ostgut Ton manager outside of his own home, the music here is tougher than his recent plush house productions. "Seaweed" reminds of his Panorama Bar mix from earlier this year: it's got a hesitant, brushed house pulse at its core, but a deceptively techno thrust lying underneath. It's all monochrome click and portentous chords until about five minutes in when an upswell of big, rounded synths swallows the track whole, shooting it off into another sphere entirely.
Fellow Berliner Deadbeat takes to the stems with a rework subtitled "Fireweed," and like the title might suggest it's a roaring beast in all the places that the original exhibited Höppner's typically calm deference. Thrown off balance, "Seaweed" suddenly sounds like a factory full of pistons and steam-powered machines, offset by stabby chords that scrape the surface before being swept up by its insistent hi-hats.
Tracklist A The Weed
B The Weed (Deadbeat's Fireweed Remix)