Following up on his 2010 madhouse pop gem >Someone Out There<, AKA JK (a.k.a. Jonathan Kreinik, New York producer extraordinaire and long-time live sound engineer for The Rapture) returns to Throne Of Blood with >2600 2600<, the title of which may or may not reference a famous analog synthesizer. An appropriate title, as synthesizers indeed abound from the start, flooding the low-end with disorienting deep analog washes before the utterly-infectious vocal enters and the party kicks off in earnest.
Like Kreinik's best production and engineering work, "2600 2600" locates the precarious divide between refined pop brilliance and total dancefloor mayhem and straddles it with relish. On remix duties, DFA's Shit Robot brings his signature minimal disco-house touch to the table, preserving the original vocal while introducing an arpeggiating synth line that ohrwurms its way through the building drama to the track's euphoric, booty-shaking climax.Ê Meanwhile, Throne of Blood alumnus John Selway returns to the fold with a more straightforward dancefloor approach, treating the vocal to an adenoidal vocoder while imbuing the track with his trademark sense of groove, atmosphere and dynamics, and not without a liberal dose of funk to boot. Mugwump, another Throne Of Blood repeat offender, lends perhaps the most liberal re-interpretation of the package. His "Italo Broadcast" version includes a re-tweaked bassline, warped-and-gauzed vocals and delicate hand percussion flourishes, the ensemble doused in diaphanous, glacial synth magic. Needless to say, it makes more than good on the promise of its title.