Encore une fois

Ok, so in my lavish praise of Etienne De Crecy last week, I completely neglected to mention the monster remix that he and Alex Gopher did of Kraftwerk's 'Aerodynamik' in that vintage year 2004. I can't believe I forgot about it, 'cos the Frenchmen's version was a big, big record for me when it came out, coinciding as it did with my then recent conversion to all things electro-ey. I can remember playing it at a lot of house parties (good and bad ones, mainly bad) back in those days, and I have a particularly fond memory of playing it at the first ever TAPE (and the second. And probably the third) - it's no surprise that my vinyl copy looks like its been sleeping rough for two years. I went to the Homelands festival in 2004, a hateful expedition which I'd embarked on mainly to see 2ManyDJs (who had completely re-calibrated my sense of music when I caught them in Spain the previous year). I allowed myself to get far too excited, and when the brothers Dewaele began, I found myself curiously underwhelmed. With foolish youngster logic, I figured that if I chomped some more pills then everything would suddenly sound amazing. It continued to sound mediocre, and I continued to chomp pills, until suddenly I'd had about eight of the fuckers and was basically just watching the side of the tent, out of my nut, talking untold nonsense to myself. Hideously disappointed, and about three days shy of being sober again, I was thankfully rehabilitated by a phenomenal set from Richard X in some lounge area, which gave me just enough strength to get to Erol Alkan in one of the smaller tents. It's a sign of how bad Homelands was that year that Erol had attracted a pitifully small audience (or maybe it was huge - I'd basically lost my vision by this point. Still, his set was amazing, and when he finished with 'Aerodynamik' I more or less died and went to (disco) heaven. But I digress. Re-listening to the thing, it's easy to see why I fell so bad for it - it's a seismic, bloated shitstorm of a track, full of teeming acid noises and swooping, panned effects, and it boasts two of the most colossal build-ups it's ever been my privilege to ride skyward on. And let's not forget the inanely catchy vocoder sample - all together now, "A-ee-ro, dee-na-meek!"...File under: Stupid, effective, amazing.

Download:
Kraftwerk - Aerodynamik (Alex Gopher/Etienne De Crecy Dynamik Mix) // EMI


P.S. Thanks to Eddy Current for reminding me of 'Aerodynamik''s existence, and sorting me out with some fine French mp3s. He's currently working on a retrospective Gallic house mix which, if he allows, we'll post up here when complete. Merci, Monsieur Current.