WRANGLER, the leftfield tronica supergroup comprised of Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder, Cornish-based Moog explorer Benge and Tuung’s Phil Winter, have released a brace of remixes of tracks taken from their latest for Bella Union, A Situation.
Wrangler formed with a simple aim. They had a select collection of vintage analogue synths from which they tasked themselves to wrangle new music. Two albums followed: 2014’s LA Spark and 2016’s White Glue.
Their latest, A Situation is, the band claim, both “their bleakest and funkiest release to date.”
It might sound a contradiction in terms, but take a trip inside the Deadenz remix below and hear the potency of that. Classic early rave and Berlin-style nuanced percussive propulsion line up in a dark and spacious groove that’s as much as come-hither for the feet as it is eerie lodged in the brain.
The MICROCORPS remix, also included here, is the work of Alexander Tucker – who also knows a thing or two about bleakness and eerieness in his body of solo work. His mix plays the sun-glimmer of synth brightness off sliding and seasick tone bends and heavily processed voices to bring you a track that’s very otherworldly: a rave banger with one foot in a psychotropic state beyond.
He said: “I’ve been really loving Wrangler’s live shows for the past few years: there’s a great balance of intricate structure alongside these sonic mutant surges.
“I wanted to make a mix that brings that mutant side to the fore by sampling and re-processing elements of the track using hardware outside of the computer. I also recorded some parts onto tape machines to get degraded and warped textures.”
Wrangler’s A Situation, which is out now on Bella Union on digital, CD and vinyl formats, promises a collection of “warm, reverberant, amped up tracks, that land somewhere between future music, synth pop, industrial dance, classic techno and rigid electro”. You can pick up a copy here.
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