- If you'll allow me a bit of whimsy, I'm 99% certain that the riff on Deepgroove & Jamie Anderson's "The Clock" is the name "Sergey Bubka" transformed into a synthesizer melody. OK, this trio probably aren't secret fans of the Russian pole vaulter, but at least now you know it's four notes, right? And those four notes are what drives this track to epic status, serving as an anchor for all manner of techno shenanigans to occur in and around it. On one side, you have your Dad showing you the old making-the-wine-glass-sing trick to increasingly distracting effect; on the other side, you have a pummeling kick drum and ants skittering across microphones. It's simultaneously unrelentingly simple and ridiculously complex—exactly what you want from minimal techno in 2009.
Deepgroove & Jamie Anderson's evolving soundscape gets colder on the B-side with Ben Klock unleashing his Teutonic might on "The Clock." Pitched at right around 130 BPM, and with an errant snare lodged in its 4/4 framework, it lends itself nicely towards moving your way into the world of dubstep. Functional aims aside, though, Klock's remix is just as dirty sounding as anything on his recent full-length, with vinyl crackle and hovering ghostly strings ever-present elements. More crucially, though, the beat sounds urgent, driving towards something unfathomably dark and interesting, which helps to propel it from the merely good to the great. Excellent stuff.
Tracklist A The Clock
B The Clock (Ben Klock's Timepiece)