Alex Ridha, the German producer better known as Boys Noize, has collated some of the bigger names to remix his album from last year, Oi Oi Oi, into an EP that plays to its strengths. Half-dismissed by critics as a Daft Punk clone, Oi Oi Oi still supplied a steady stream of club favorites and fertile fodder for remixers from the amateur to the professional.
Towards the latter end of the spectrum, Ridha has enlisted seven like-minded producers to re-tool some of the better material from his debut into a fresh-sounding and buoyant Remixed EP. Nowadays, you don’t expect much more from an electro remix than from a rap mixtape — transiently twisting the current week’s favored track for momentary aural stimulation one pre-party, or gym session, at a time. Here, though remixers Feadz, Apparat and Para One provide remarkably efffective alternatives to dropping, say, “DVNO”, into that DJ set.
The tone of the EP is appropriately varied — as you’d expect, catering different remixes for different purposes — from Feadz’ more cerebral, deeper take on “Lava Lava” to the piecemeal, slightly haphazard approach Para One takes to “My Head”. The most complete remix might be Apparat’s, which begins at a more relaxed pace before bounding into the maximalist electro aesthetic we’d expect of a Boys Noize cut, filling out the churning bass synths with a slow wash of glacial treble chords. As indie kids’ attentions drift elsewhere, these producers are staying true to the original electro imprint: to make dirty, dangerous music that’s, above all, damn fun to fist-pump to.