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Red Snapper, "Red One"
The record that begs the question: "Was there a time when Red Snapper was good?"
Flameboy Records
Was there a time when Red Snapper was good? I seem to remember that time, but all that I get from this remix 12" are bits of Red Snapper distilled for a mindless club audience. Red One is the 12" release of remixes from the Lo Recordings CD that must be inevitable because there's little point to any of these mixes outside of a club or sneaker commercial. Radioactive Man takes a stab at remixing "Four Dead Monks" into a nondescript jumpy techno/break number that I'm sure some DJ pool has a genre name for but that leaves me as a casual listener pretty cold. "Ultraviolet" begins with a minimal arrangement of soft tones and sparse high hats before kicking in to beat so generic it could only have been designed to make people mash their bodies together. The out-of-time bassline tries to give the track some sexy funk but winds up only smearing things into a mechanically unfunky mess. "Drill" as remixed by Jakeone is a welcome change of pace on the B-side, mixing a hip hop vocal over rubbery electro that falls on the European side of Afrika Bambaataa but is nonetheless groovy and deep. It's also the only track exclusive to the 12" which is a mixed blessing as it's the only one really worth searching out. Lastly, never name the last track on your record "Regrettable" for obvious reasons. It's just fodder for those of us who are sent copies of these releases to review. If you have to include a track called "Regrettable", at least have the decency to bury it in the middle of your record so that the listener/reviewer's last impression of your record is not... well, obvious.
Was there a time when Red Snapper was good? I seem to remember that time, but all that I get from this remix 12" are bits of Red Snapper distilled for a mindless club audience. Red One is the 12" release of remixes from the Lo Recordings CD that must be inevitable because there's little point to any of these mixes outside of a club or sneaker commercial. Radioactive Man takes a stab at remixing "Four Dead Monks" into a nondescript jumpy techno/break number that I'm sure some DJ pool has a genre name for but that leaves me as a casual listener pretty cold. "Ultraviolet" begins with a minimal arrangement of soft tones and sparse high hats before kicking in to beat so generic it could only have been designed to make people mash their bodies together. The out-of-time bassline tries to give the track some sexy funk but winds up only smearing things into a mechanically unfunky mess. "Drill" as remixed by Jakeone is a welcome change of pace on the B-side, mixing a hip hop vocal over rubbery electro that falls on the European side of Afrika Bambaataa but is nonetheless groovy and deep. It's also the only track exclusive to the 12" which is a mixed blessing as it's the only one really worth searching out. Lastly, never name the last track on your record "Regrettable" for obvious reasons. It's just fodder for those of us who are sent copies of these releases to review. If you have to include a track called "Regrettable", at least have the decency to bury it in the middle of your record so that the listener/reviewer's last impression of your record is not... well, obvious. samples:
