Ricardo Donoso – Iron / Verse Remixes (Digitalis Recordings DIGIV067)

Handing out “As Iron Sharpens Iron, One Verse Sharpens Another” to internationally acclaimed artists for remixing was not driven by the need to legitimize Ricardo Donoso’s album for the club use. As noted in the LP’s review – current work is his closest to dance canons, or could it be trance canons – it was already there. And even more after the reworks.
One might expect that Yves De Mey, a modular synth expert and Opal Tapes artist, is hooked on impudent experimentalism but the Belgian prefers rather dreamy layers in “The Sphinx”. Opening the “Diagonal Environment” with Holy Mountain-style spoken word, Recondite delivers a techno resident’s view with a tension-building break and flaming arps, recalling Emmanuel Top’s most energetic moments back in the days.
Subtext label owner Paul Jebanasam scratches the surface of ambient in “Affirmation”, adding drone-charged chords and dissonant signals to the lot while John Tejada, who mastered the album, sticks to a laid back tech house in “The Redeemer”, without reinforcing the original’s entrancing nature. Andreas Tilliander’s TM404 project closes the chapter with acidic additives and glowing timbres in “Open Drawer, Full Of Masks”. Good things done here.


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