model 500 At Juno Download

Review: It's a rare thing for electronic music producers to make impressive returns - think of recent re-appearances by Orbital or Future Sound of London - but this is different. Like Luke Slater's decision to relaunch Planetary Assault Systems, Juan Atkins's comeback as Model 500 serves as a reminder that when it comes to making music from another dimension, the Detroit native has few peers. The key difference between Atkins's return and Slater's latest vision for PAS is that Control doesn't sound that different to classic Model 500 material. Granted, the production sounds punchier and clearer, but this has perhaps more to do with the production tools than the song craft. Yet at the same time, Atkins is ploughing a furrow that he first explored almost 30 years ago, and it still sounds relevant and vital. Maybe contemporary music's lack of a distinctive edge means that the approach that Atkins developed long ago still resonates, but irrespective of the explanation, "Control" connects on a number of levels, be it thanks to the wobbly bassline, deadpan robo vocal or combination of dreamy synths with niggling bleeps and blips. The same sense of adventure, that feeling that music could transport the listener to another place, still applies. "The Messenger" is a typical Detroit techno groove, its shuffling, jerky rhythm playing host to a small universe worth of effects, tones and riffs, accentuated by sharper modern-day production techniques. It goes to show that Atkins's magic touch is a powerful as ever.

Review: The two opposing ends of R&S's historical spectrum collide on this ten inch as the track that marked Model 500's return to the imprint after a fourteen year absence gets taken apart and put back together in gloriously diverse fashion by two rising talents. It's a near exercise in futility to try and separate these two remixes of Model 500's "OFI" and proclaim one the winner, as both the submissions from Bullion and Space Dimension Controller are teeming at the brink with ideas that radicalise the template of the original. Anyone who indulged in the recent non album from Bullion will be fully aware of this producer's capacity to twist through tempos and rhythms at will and make it all work. That approach is more than replicated on his "Rivertrance Remix" which on first inspection sounds like three tracks in one. Galloping along via a bottomed out kraut groove, Bullion swerves through a collage of dizzying psychedelic sounds and effects in the space of four and a bit minutes which laugh generously in the face of categorisation. The flipside "Evasive Funk" remix from Celtic astronaut Space Dimension Controller retains the austere electro funk pulse of the original from Atkins, Banks and Taylor but sharpens the pace markedly, embellishing the bass with a schizophrenic menace that is matched by the sheer depth of percussive layers and synthesized touches.