Trentemøller - Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider Go!

Trentemøller - Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider Go! (In My Room)
Despite developing a very distinctive palette of sounds, Trentemøller has never stuck to one specific style, choosing instead to dance lightly across the spectrum of modern dance music, acting the fanboy and paying homage to his influences. That's not to devalue his music in any way - his Echochord single Rauta, whilst heavily indebted to the Basic Channel axis, showed that the Danish producer could capture the depth and space of great dub. Equally, his forays into dark nordic electronica on The Great Wide Yonder never felt like diet-Knife, but came across as an introspective and personal trip for the producer. Ghost Rider, Silver Surfer, Go!, the third single from Great Wide Yonder, sees Anders applying himself to feedback-heavy psychedelia, surf and rockabilly. He's hinted at this passion for noisy guitars and vintage production values in the past, regularly dropping a bootleg of Break On Through and Le Tigre's Nanny Nanny Boo Boo into sets of dub, techno and electronica, and again proves himself adept at applying his sonic pallette to any style.

As with previous releases, the single features the original, a club rework by Trentemøller and additional remixes - in this case, Lord Sabre himself, Andrew Weatherall hands in some of his best work in ages, whilst Trentemøller frequent collaborator DJ Tom reworks it into an industrial dub on the flip. The original, with it's squalling guitar line, buzzing bass and comforting mess of feedback is never going to be rocking big rooms, but has it's place, and is frankly a welcome addition to the package. If you couldn't be arsed forking out for the album, it's a pleasant surprise to find this on vinyl. Sounding like Suicide given a tweak by Ed Banger, it leans pleasantly heavily on the searing guitar line and two-note bass, rather than retreating into simple techno that only touches on the original. Admittedly, it's still more song-based than DJ tool, but with the typically banging breakdowns and climaxes, it's still a Trentemøller track to take to the dancefloor. The remix works around exactly the same sounds, tightening up the structure and shaping it a bit more the raving, which totally works.

Weatherall is one of those producers that has consistently changed the game, even for his hardcore fans, making him hella tricky to pin down. This is no bad thing, but I've bought a few duds of his expecting TLS or Sabres, and whilst Sci-Fi LoFi is an impressive statement, I'm fairly certain I lost it about a week after buying it. Dashing all fears, Weatherall totally one-ups Anders' remix, managing to combine both the gritty blues-rock that he obviously shares a deep love for and the bangtastic rave of his 90s stylings in a loopy, distortion-heavy mess that flits between electro, indie-dance and rock-a-billy. It's frankly, one of the best slices of Weatherall I've heard in years, and one of the few times I've really seem him cross-pollinate so many of his fragments. If he'd managed a bit of Machine Funk Specialists in there, I think I'd have cried. Whilst the big names make the big noise, DJ Tom's remix kinda sneaks by, with it's deep industrial sounds and half-step rhythm. Seeing as everything Trentemøller does becomes rinse-tastic within a month of coming out, this is a total sleeper hit, to be discovered once we've finished drooling over the big names. It's a dubby, creeping re-invention of all the bits the other remixes forgot to use, and it's quite frankly brilliant.

Top 12". Buy now.