- Having built up a fairly decent reputation in psy-trance circles with their releases as Midimiliz, producers Arne Schaffhausen and Wayan Raabe first caused a stir among the Berlin-centric “minimal” community in the spring of 2005, when they adopted the name Extrawelt to release ‘Soopertrack’ on James Holden’s tranced-up-techno label Border Community. Melancholic, uplifting and dancefloor-effective all at the same time, ‘Soopertrack’ quite vigorously lived up to its title and remains, for this reviewer at least, one of Border Community’s finest releases.
Since then, Extrawelt’s productions have sounded less groundbreaking, less vital, but they’ve not made a bad record that I’m aware of. Now, they weigh in with a 12” for Traum, enlisting the services of Morelle for A-side ‘Schmedding’. Beginning with a growling, melodic bassline, ‘Schmedding’ builds and builds to admit the ascending, ethereal synth lines we’ve come to associate with Border Community and the, ahem, ‘trendy trance’ sound. But while ‘Soopertrack’ anchored its builds with clipped, tight programming down below, ‘Schmedding’ is full of unrefined percussion sounds – cheap, synthetic sounding woodblocks and snares, and galloping hi-hats that sit far too loud in the mix. It’s not as unpleasant as I perhaps suggest, but when so many producers out there are achieving unprecedented feats of depth and discernment in the composition of dancefloor fodder, ‘Schmedding’ sounds just a bit too maximal for its own good. The tune is far more likely to find favour with old-fashioned prog jocks and the electro-house-by-numbers types than with those forward-thinking DJs who were caning ‘Soopertrack’ two years ago. The meaty, bleepy electronic riffage is pretty addictive, but in a world where we’re almost buckling under the weight of super-high-quality 4x4, this track just seems…surplus to requirement.
On the flip you’ll find ‘8000’, a more subtle and agreeably trancey number. The spine-tingling ambient synths and driving bassline are slightly reminiscent of Minilogue’s ‘Girl From Botany Bay’, but it’s not really fair comparison; ‘8000’’s pretensions to the status of ‘epic’ remain exactly that – pretensions. Again, those boorish percussion motifs that clatter between the kicks quickly begin to irritate, and you reach the track’s end with no real sense of having spent the last six minutes wisely.
‘Schmedding 8000’ isn’t a bad record, but all the same - two years have passed, and we’re still waiting for Extrawelt to live up to the promise of ‘Soopertrack’. Personally, I’ve given up.
TracklistA Extrawelt & Morelle - Schmedding
B Extrawelt - 8000