Steve Bug – The Deeper Remixes 2009-2015 (Dessous)

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German DJ / producer Steve Bug (real name Steve Brugesch) should already be familiar to many Cyclic Defrost readers, having spent the last two decades carving out a position as one of the European deep house scene’s most consistent and distinctive figures. Alongside a swelling backcatalogue with releases on labels including Poker Flat, Superstition and Ovum, he’s also something of a prolific remixer. This latest download-only compilation on Hamburg label Dessous ‘The Deeper Remixes 2009-2015’ collects together a selection of twelve of Bug’s remixes for other artists over the last six years, with the emphasis falling upon refined and frequently hypnotic deep house grooves.

What’s immediately apparent here is the distinct lineage between Bug’s contemporary work and classic New York and Chicago house sounds, something reflected in the selection of remixes on offer here. Bug’s reworking of Chez Damier’s ‘Can You Feel It’ kicks things off with an insistently yet lulling deep house groove that builds itself up slowly around sculpted bass pads and aluminium-light snares, before a nagging looped male vocal samples rises into the foreground around colourful vampy synth stabs. If it’s an appropriately subliminal intro warmer for this collection, Bug’s remix of Ron Allen’s ‘Wordz’ gets more edgy and percussive, sending rattling toms rolling against smeared out soul keys and Affrica’s breakup centred spoken word vocals, the brooding synth pads that hang in the background adding to the tense urgency of the pulsing rhythms.

Elsewhere a reworking of Bug’s own collaboration with Mr. V ‘The Long Run’ sees a male artist (presumably Mr. V) offering up an eight minute long monologue about how he’s going to leave an indelible mark on the music scene that gives Kanye a run for his money in the egocentric stakes as a jacking house groove powers beneath against darting, jazzy keyboard stabs and warm muted bass tones, before Bug’s remix of Laurent Garnier’s ‘Whistle For Frankie’ gets more muscular, sending eerie machine bleeps and distant sample soul yelps floating against a tightly mechanistic backbone of woodblock percussion aand whisper-soft hi-hats, the addition of noodling clavinet keys adding a soulful late night undertone. As a cross-section of Bug’s remix work for other artists over the past six years, this offers up a consistently gripping and inspired selection.

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