Kept to a minimum...

Back online after my computer crashed - fingers crossed I can get my HD recovered, otherwise I'll have lost a lot of tunes...

Here is one I was lucky enough to have backed up before the PC took a dive.

Track : NEW ORDER - "CONFUSION (RICARDO VILLALOBOS REMIX)"

Firstly, RIP New Order. Though no doubt they'll be back in some form or another at some point.

Secondly, has there been a decent New Order remix in recent years? Everyone knows all the best New Order 12"s were rounded up by Factory and put out 20 years ago - jesus, 20 years ago... - on the classic "Substance 1987" comp. Since then I can only think of Farley & Heller's remix of "Regret" and Hardfloor's 303 re-squelch of "Blue Monday" as being any good.

Well, as New Order call it a day, it's taken a limited edition, one sided 12" and a remix of their 1983 track "Confusion", by the current king of minimal, Ricardo Villalobos, to raise the bar for New Order remixes.

This one may take a while to get under your skin. It's Villallobos at the controls. And he, as usual, is in no hurry. Nine and a half minutes of stripped back, minimal, tech business with Barney Sumner's vocals sparing spaced over the duration of the track. It's completely different from the original, kinetic, early NY electro production by Arthur Baker.

And on a side note, I highly recommend Villalobos' mix for the ongoing Fabric series. To all intents and purposes this is less a various artists mix but more a proper album by the artist. It plays like one ongoing, mutating piece of music with each track slightly adding a bit more to the proceedings, be it a hi-hat, a beat or just some chord structures. But at it's heart it is very, very minimal.

Enjoy.

Go Buy : New Order - Confusion (Ricardo Villalobos Remix) - 12"
Go Buy : New Order - Substance 1987
Go Buy : Ricardo Villalobos - Fabric 36

Go Visit : New Order
Go Visit : Ricardo Villalobos

Feel free to leave a comment about this in The Pipe section of the forum.

Ta,
Budgie