- Will Space Dimension Controller build on 2010's hugely impressive introduction and enter the speculative ranks of greatness already expected of him? Surely a pressure-baiting album isn't far off, but, in the meantime, the charge to remix Model 500 seems as good a springboard as any for the defense of his space-funk crown. He succeeds in doing just that; neither bettered nor built on, nor worse to be sure, but comfortable on the same astral plane as before.
The principal difference between this and previous efforts is tempo. The prevailing sound aesthetic is his trademark—percussion batted by the wings of an intergalactic hummingbird, the graces and mordents of virtuoso funk, chords that genuinely sound the same as his supernova-lit record sleeves look—but with such a remix task, the voice screaming “techno” must be hard to shake, and so the starlight elongates to 130 BPM. It suits. It sounds like a Drexciyan Neptune, only less seafaring, more planetary. But then it also sounds a bit like "Cosmo30 Travel Duration" or "Mercurial Attraction" with the pitch jammed high, raising an ever-so-slight suspicion that, at some point in the future, there might be talk of a "fancy fingerwork x lush pad / 4 = SDC" formula.
Bullion flies in the face of definition with a madcap, but not unwelcome, turn. Alighting at an unknown station somewhere between prog and kraut, the UK producer is at once space cadet and pied-piper, punctuating sci-fi sounds with folk interludes over a beat that craves, and receives, a motorik makeover. "No UFOs," said Juan Atkins. "What about UFO radio?" ask SDC and Bullion.
Tracklist A OFI (Space Dimension Controller Remix)
B OFI (Bullion Remix)