Horchata & Twine
Resource
(AdAstra/Zero 1)
Like many other lesser-known electronic musicians, Horchata and Twine have been creating excellent electronic music for a long time, and slowly winning over listeners with each release. Horchata, in fact, has released several full lengths (on both record and CD) and has been involved with numerous compilations and collaborations. Twine has remixed big names like Coil (the strictly-limited, now out-of-print first release from Brainwashed Recordings) and released several albums as well. Resource finds the groups (individuals) teaming up in a rather interesting way. Both musicians created two different tracks, then passed them along to the other person to remix. The 8 tracks on the disc consist of both the originals of the four tracks, as well as the remixes put together by the other artist. Tag-team remixing, anyone?
The release starts out with the original version of "Soil" by Horchata, and it's one of the most friendly tracks on the disc, with layers of synths bubbling over one another before what sounds like a dizzy, tweaked-out metal drum melody floats in behind everything. Instead of sequencing things in order of artist or remix, the album fortunately just follows a logical path of sounds, and the remix of "Center" follows as the second track. The original by Twine is rumbling, click-hopping track that moves along at a brisk pace and stutters every few moments in danger of being derailed by a crazy breakbeat or blast of glitch. For the remix, Horchata notches down the tempo quite a bit and adds some shimmering synth layers over it all, turning it into something different entirely.
Although there are exceptions to the rule (Horchata's rumbling, static-laden remix of Twine's "Sindl" as an example), the two artists show their stronger sides on the release. Horchata offers up a good batch of super dark ambient soundscapes, which are often offset by rather pretty, drifting and subtle melodies. The album centerpiece of "Wind" is a minimal 12-minute piece that conjures up images of a rather desolate, windblown (natch) landscape of snow, with coyotes howling in the background (or what was that noise hidden in the murky depths?). On the other hand, Twine turns in several rumbling tracks, including his original version of "Sindl," which rumbles and skitters like a Mick Harris (as Scorn) track.
Of course, just when you think you've pigeonholed Twine as well, he wriggles out of things by turning the shortest track on the album (the opener of "Soil" by Horchata) into the longest with his 22-minute closing mix of the song. In it, he keeps only a couple of the original elements, and adds a ghostly piano track that mimics the original clangy melody and takes it in entirely new directions while murky spoken word samples linger. Basically, it's a varied disc over the course of the eight tracks, although it all falls into an uneasy and rather dark electronic vein. For fans of the groups mentioned above, or even remixed Nine Inch Nails instrumental work (which the aformentiond Coil did wonders with on a couple EPs), it's a good introduction to either artist involved.
Rating: 7.25
