White Car, the Hippos In Tanks-signed duo of Elon Katz and Orion Martin, released their debut album Everyday Grace earlier this year. A record of terse and unpredicatable digital funk, complete with vocals toeing the line between glammy strut and neurotic post-punk yelp, it was prone to switching on a sixpence, drawing in elements of electro, pop and dance into a chaotic stew of a listen. A good fit for Hippos In Tanks then, whose modus operandi has been to operate at the bleeding edge between sounds, always within a very modern, digital world-informed remit – an approach that’s seen them release records from the likes of Laurel Halo, Hype Williams and James Ferraro, and that promises new cuts in 2012 from Gatekeeper, Nguzunguzu and d’Eon (among others).
For your Friday afternoon pleasure, we’re pleased to be able to offer an exclusive stream of something rather special – a remix of one of White Car’s tracks from Everyday Grace by Heinrich Mueller, aka Gerald Donald. If you’re unfamiliar with his huge back catalogue and very influential work, Donald cut his teeth as one half of seminal Detroit electro duo Drexciya, whose music still stuns new listeners with its rich sonic mythology and fluid, hand-built grooves. Since the death of Drexciya’s James Stinson, Donald/Mueller has traveled deeper into the worlds of science, parapsychology and quantum physics through a series of concept-driven records with Dopplereffekt, Arpanet, Japanese Telecom, Zwischenwelt, and under an array of other pseudonyms. Always seeking to explore the interface between human and machine, his take on electronic music is distinctive and frosty in the extreme. His take on ‘Now We Continue’ – subtitled ‘Heinrich Mueller Continuum’ – is no exception, losing the original’s murk in favour of an ice-cold, slow-motion electro-pop gem. Stream below.
