With a pulsation similar to the elevated heartbeat that most
of us experience upon seeing someone that we’ll have a passionate romance with,
we find the understated bassline’s groove in Patrik Kambo’s remix of “Call My
Name,” the new song and music video from Britain’s ooberfuse. Kambo makes the
bass as much of a star in this track as the vibrant lead vocal from singer
Cherrie Anderson is, and when we compare their textural similarities to one
another, the only thing to distinguish the two of them is the lyrical emissions
that Anderson shares with us one poetic verse at a time. If “Call My Name” were
a meat and potatoes pop song, you would never know it, and that’s because these
five mixes allow for it to evolve into something much more commanding than a
simple Top 40 teen beat could ever be.
Hal St John’s mix of “Call My Name” was, like Kambo’s, designed
for mainstream radio airplay, but where Kambo leaves the central synth melodies
alone in his edit, St John scraps them altogether, filling their spots with an
effervescent string arrangement that arguably holds the song together much
better than the synthesized parts do. This mix favors the vocal and the
instrumentation equally, with the rigidity of the drum track melting away under
the pure heat of the groove and tonality of the guitars. There isn’t another
version of “Call My Name” that is quite as captivating as this one is, though
some – like the “Push The Frequency Festival Mix” – are definitely in the same
ballpark of provocativeness.
“Push The Frequency Festival Mix” borrows a few of the string
parts that we hear in Hal St John’s mix and fuses them into the spastic
percussive components with virtually zero elegance, creating a gritty noise
between the two that singer Cherrie Anderson essentially incorporates into her
seductive vocal harmony. Though I find the smorgasbord of color to be
incredibly beautiful, this track will likely be viewed as the most overwhelming
for casual listeners if for no other reason than its magnificently multilayered
mix. The same can be said for the low-end assault that “The Noise” edit can be
described as, but not in the case of Paul Kennedy’s remix (also found in the
music video for “Call My Name”), which I consider to be the most efficiently
structured track here
.
Kennedy’s use of sharp white noise as a backdrop for the cathartic
verses that Anderson vaults in our direction was probably the most brilliant
move made in the creation of this EP, but I have a feeling that listeners are
going to walk away with plenty of their own opinions in regards to the
aesthetics of Call My Name. Ooberfuse give
us a lot to think about in this sixteen-minute opus, and for containing less
than half a dozen tracks, that’s something that even their tougher American
critics would have to concede as being exceptional. Having spent a great deal
of time reviewing music in this genre, I can confidently say that there really
haven’t been any electronica records released in 2019 that can compete with the
enduring musical depth that we find in these five tracks.
Joshua Beach
Joshua Beach
