- A soca beat, a synth sequence that holds rhythm by the skin of its teeth and a bass riff that careers down the banister of a minor arpeggio with all the gracefulness of a drum & bass pole dancer. These are the main ingredients of Contakt's "Not Forgotten." The matter-of-fact list is a product of ambivalence. It's all rather simple, a little frigid, hardly ingenious. But then, you can't help but feel that, at the right time on the right floor, this could do some—for want of a better word, but not a more appropriate one—damage. (Just listen to the sound of that bass.)
If not in abundance, it has charisma; enough in fact that, with his remix, the Jaguar himself sounds peculiarly tame by comparison. Rolando retains the riff, but floors the volume—arguably its prime virtue—to make way for a techno charge of the nondescript variety, promising a build that never really materialises. "Rhodophyta" is quite similar in that respect—despite some exigency in the strings and sub-bass, its minimalist percussion policy (the tinny hi-hat timbre is a hit regardless) means it doesn't get going and rather stutters its way through what sounds like an interesting sketch of an unfinished track. The potential is there, the polish isn't—an impression gleaned from the release as a whole.
Tracklist 01. Not Forgotten
02. Not Forgotten (Rolando Remix)
03. Rhodophyta