Tag: Cliff Martinez

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Throughout this site’s eight plus year history I’ve written a lot about the ridiculously prolific New York-based producer, DJ, remixer and longtime JOVM mainstay Rhythm Scholar, and as you’ll likely recall he has received attention for slickly produced, funky as hell, crowd-pleasing mashups and remixes of classic soul, funk, soul hip-hop, New Wave and others.  Interestingly, over the past year or so, the longtime JOVM mainstay has increasingly employed the use of live instrumentation to his remixes; in fact, his latest remix finds him taking on the Depeche Mode classic “Never Let Me Down Again.”

Featuring Jason Spillman (bass), Angus Mashgyver (guitar) and samples of Heavenly Music Corporation and Cliff Martinez, the remix retains Dave Gahan‘s imitable vocal but places it within a slightly more up-tempo setting with layers upon layers of arpeggiated synths, thumping beats, a dance floor friendly break, and ambient flute and other instrumentation to bolster the song’s melody in the song’s quieter moments. Live bass and guitar give the song a muscular and funky heft. But while pushing the song from ambient and industrial electro pop to thumping, industrial-inspired house, Rhythm Scholar manages to retain the most important quality of the song — it’s brooding, emotional quality.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Deriving their name from the computing term “soft error” — or a fault occurrence in a digital memory system that changes an instruction in a program or a data value, Soft Error is an accomplished production and DJ duo of Tim and Rupert, who have been well-regarded in electronic music scenes and composition for film, theater and TV respectively. Their full-length debut Mechanism which is slated for a January 6, 2017 through Village Green Records was recorded at Valgeir Sigurðsson’s renowned Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavik, Iceland and draws from 1907s Krautrock, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Cliff Martinez, John Carpenter and Jon Hopkins — while also dimly nodding at the likes of Kraftwerk  and contemporary acts like Collapse Under the Empire.

“You Caught Up,” the duo’s cinematic and retro-futuristic debut single and first single off their forthcoming full-length was written and recorded in Paris, arranged in London and mixed in Iceland, consists of layers of shimmering and cascading synths, a sinuous bass line and propulsive drumming and a gorgeous wind section arrangement. Interestingly, the composition reveals a painterly nature, as each note and each chord adds a bit of texture and color like a brushstroke upon a canvas — while sounding as though it should be part of a soundtrack to a futuristic thriller.