What with its meditative background harmony, menacing, almost snarling percussive edges and marching-order drum beat that scarcely lets up throughout the seven-minute long assault, you could be forgiven for thinking Jon Hopkins and Pangaea were sending you to war. Thankfully, and obviously, that’s not what’s happening here at all, but nevertheless brooding atmospheres pervade every bar of the latter’s remix of the former’s track from his Mercury-nominated LP, Immunity, with more than a slight air of some impending dreadnaught.
Fear not, though. There’s a gutteral, or perhaps more accurately steam-age factory funk to the solitary tune on this package which, despite weighing heavy in iron-clad stomp, somehow manages to lighten and loosen the moodiness, resulting in what appears to be the kind of record with appeal that should extend well beyond the core underground market, providing it’s played by tastemakers outside said micro-scene. And by all accounts it has been pre-release, a trend that deserves to continue, and a positive outcome from all the media attention lauded on both faces involved in its release.