- Since its inception back in 2004, Ali Wells' Perc Trax imprint has grown to become a bountiful source of techno goodness, hitting something of a peak of late with an excellent Donor/Truss EP, a sterling jungle re-rub 12-inch and a criminally untapped debut LP from the oh-so-talented Ben Gibson. Such is the label's growing stature, it comes as no real surprise that its latest offering—a hefty slab of pitch-black warehouse filth—pushes all the right buttons.
The central piece, Perc's brutal "BCG," is that rare thing: a tool which needn't be used as such. Chugging along like a boozed-up Marcel Dettmann ditty minus any tangible melodic content, its motives are at best questionable. And by the time the first of its six hellish gunshot sprees registers, it's clear we're dealing with a most depraved specimen. Happily, the three remixes on display—one from Glasgow's shady Forward Strategy Group, two from Berlin's much-hyped Milton Bradley—make no attempt to lighten the load.
FSG smear on turgid grease, eking out a delectably militant mutant groove and layering in thick curds of Surgeon-esque ambience. Bradley's "Critical Level Mix" follows much the same template, replacing the original's lurid sprawl with a metronomic packing-line shuffle and nervously reverberating atmospherics. But it's his "Beyond The Silence Mix"—by some way the EPs most understated piece—which really steals the show, its laid back breaks and cavernous blasts of steam-train haze making it the perfect weapon for any warehouse DJ brave enough to go that bit deeper.
Tracklist A1 BCG (Original Mix)
A2 BCG (Forward Strategy Group Remix)
B1 BCG (Milton Bradley Critical Level Mix)
B2 BCG (Milton Bradley Beyond The Silence Mix)