Lawrence - Along the Wire

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  • No stranger to the remix on either side of the fence, Lawrence's next contender 'Along the Wire' from his 'Night Will Last Forever' LP receives three mixes by two artists, an unusual proposition with convincing, and differing, results. Superpitcher's version smears the original blips and tones into long throbbing pulsars, becoming one of his most satisfying recent productions. Where Lawrence skipped, Superpitcher bounds, wide-eyed and woozy, for nine searing minutes. The Kompakt pedigree is immediate in the drums and offbeat bassline, which could be Michael Mayer, until the chord change comes in and we're swooning, delightedly, in heartbreak. Lawrence's melody is diced and strewn like pixie-dust, peppered with delay, then left to grow nostalgic while the audience is pounded into a Cologne trance reverie. After this Troy Pierce's two versions sound flat, but once viewed in perspective they reveal their own, lesser, charms. B1's Painted by Scholars Mix is the slightest, the low-end transformed into neat pops beside an acid pulse choked into mere gasps. The melody resurfaces as tidy pings while the bassline threatens to growl but purrs, as snatches of guitar-like feedback sneak by. B2 and his Black Boots Remix is similarly petite, only funkier: here the tiny particles scatter and weave like Villalobos, fragments of delay attaching themselves to whatever they can grip. Halfway through some pads sweep in and almost take charge before a family of woodblocks rattle by, aided by tweaked pulses. Superpitcher has the hands-in-the-air covered, but Pierce and his Black Boots will sit nicely in many an early evening set. A fine and varied record.
RA