Coming hot on the heels of the full length self-titled album – Tommy Four Seven’s side project These Hidden Hands delivers two EPs of brutalist remixes of already brutalist modern techno. Where the originals recalled the best British industrial sounds of the mid to late 90s – Surgeon, Regis channelling an even darker atmosphere akin to The Mover – the remixes push the tracks even further out. Marcel Dettman’s mix of Laika is the lightest track of the set, Swedish producer on Avian Recs, SHXCXCHCXSH turns in a relentless industrial halfstepper mix of Kheium with a menacing pendulum swing beat and factory noises pushed to 11. Sullen Tone’s Old Apparatus strips takes one of the more ambient originals, Hidden, and feeds it though and industrial sander, adding a thick layer of grit and distortion and in so doing ups the sense of menace. The second set of mixes kicks off with a killer Atom â„¢ rework of When Told turning it into a spring-loaded dancefloor track, all the more odd when the baleful vocal emerges. Kangding Ray’s mix of Diesal channels Nitzer Ebb’s ‘muscle and hate’ and the set is rounded off by Ancient Methods droning mix of Isopod offset by a relentless digitally clipped beat.
Seb Chan
