Steve Milanese is capable of an awfully ferocious slab of sound. His Extend album was chock full of distortion, mangled sounds, frenetic breaks and weird cut-up vocals, resulting in one of last year's more memorable (and scathing) dubstep albums. It's only fitting that after his cut-up, boisterous debut 1 Up Milanese jumped from Warp Records to µ-Ziq's Planet µ imprint; Mike Paradinas (µ-Ziq) has been focused on harnessing the collective power of the fast and the furious for many years, with a notable gap between the en vogue days of drum & bass and its various niche offshoots (Squarepusher, et al) to the renewed interest in the power of the distorted break (circa Burial's debut). So the aggressive bombast of Milanese's Extend seemed right at home alongside the likes of MRK1, Vex'd and other µ artists.
Perhaps what makes Milanese's releases so appealing is that they never overstay their welcome. 1 Up was a mini-album with a plenty of legroom within its noise, never prone to resting squarely within one specific aspect of dubstep or broken beat. Extend appropriately enough expanded a bit with 10 tracks, a few of which were shorter with a run-time totaling under 40 minutes. And in the middle of last year, Milanese released this collection of remixes and rarities, Adapt, which interestingly culls from both of his previous albums, not just one. Extend is represented more substantially, with a primary focus on the vocal and more direct beat-driven tracks, but Adapt lacks one thing that was really appealing about that release, which is its willingness to forego the drum track altogether and to opt for more sculptural, dense noise. It generally makes up for it, however, in its keen ear for rhythm.
Milanese contributes a couple reworkings of his own, including the alternate of "Mr. Bad News," here titled "Mr. Good News," as well as another remix of the track from Chris Clark, who turns it into something far more impressive, playing up the melodic phrase that formerly was limited to a low-end snarl, but still laying on plenty of grit with furious breaks and drum programming. Distance's remix of "Dead Man Walking" turns down some of the distortion and distills it into something that feels a little less brutal, easier to digest; similarly, Milanese does his own dub of "Barry" from Extend which again peels back one layer of the frantic chaos that shaped the original, but it still relies heavily on the repetitive I, Robot sample ("I did not murder him...") and distorted, albeit slower, drums.
My favorite de/reconstruction comes from Hrdvision... his reworking of "Sight Beyond Sight" is super clipped, cut-up, reorganized and revitalized. The original was a brutal, thudding assault of breaks and atmospherics, leaning more toward the pulverizing hardstep of late 90s Panacea than anything one might associate with the current dubstep scene. Hrdvision's interpretation dissects the source audio and makes it something new, even as many of the samples sound like they were sourced from the final bounced track (just fragmented and reorganized). As it progresses things mutate and he introduces some unusual synth patterns as well as additional drill & bass breakbeat loops, making the second half of the mix almost its own track completely, but one of the most interesting portions of Adapt on the whole. The other remixes that appear from 1 Up also also enjoyable, especially the "Billy Electron" track which revisits "Billy Hologram" and makes it something less rough around the edges.
It's not essential listening, but is an interesting complement to the previous two releases in Milanese's repertoire. For newcomers, I'd recommend Extend over this, which is better heard first if only to appreciate the new direction of some of these remixes, but also has more to it in terms of variety and raw power. That said, it's a welcome stopgap until we hear more original material from Mr. Milanese.
mp3s: Sight Beyond Sight (Hrdvision Remix) | Mr. Bad News (Clark Remix)
more information: Planet µ | Official site | Myspace
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