GO!DIVA ‘Avis/Decreet’

GO!DIVA / ‘Avis b/w Decreet’; Perc, Jan Stricker remixes

Vinyl / MP3

!Organism / Released November 1st 2010

You’d be right to be a skeptic when it comes to DJ contests. It’s not really that kind of thing, for the majority of people at least. And, in all honesty, the sorely missed Muzik Bedroom Bedlam was really the only significant competition in the world of club culture.

So when Danielle M. N. Godiva won the Next Generation DJ contest you may well have thought, ‘so?’ One play of this 12″ will confirm why you should have paid more attention back then. Two tracks, with three remixes have rarely sounded quite so different, yet clearly based on source material from one very focused artist.

Avis is reminiscent of M83’s Run Into Flowers, albeit with less glitch, fewer cuts and a lot more phazer-beams going off in all sorts of directions. Blissed out breaks that work are hard to come by, and this is one of the best tools we’ve heard in some time with which to bring on an opiate atmosphere in a club at 3am. There’s enough kick and thrust to ensure people will still move, while there’s not a hint of anti-rave unfriendliness about any of the noises.

Percs delivers a ‘stepping’ version, which should play well in the hands of dubstep fans, while running at a mid-techno tempo. Unnerving keys and harmonies bring about a horror-movie feeling to the who thing, a sensation also achieved in said remixer’s ‘Windjammer mix’, though this time complete with drudging four-fours, and pulled off to slightly less impressive effect.

In contrast the original version of Decreet is something of a brooding techno pounder. It kicks and punches its way into a percussion and hook-heavy rhythm, as metallic cymbals bounce off cow bells. Breakdown atmospherics abound, it’s easy to imagine this opening more than a few sets from jocks with a reputation for hammering records that sound like menace. Once the organ stabs join there’s something of a Metalheadz circa 1996 flavour about the whole sound, making for a refreshing end product.