- Who says you can only fetishize analog sounds? If Fabrice Lig's latest on R&S is any indication, perhaps someday in the future we'll be nerdily obsessing over retro-digital productions as well. Fittingly enough "Digital Forest" aims to wrest an organic thicket of sound out of crispy-clean computerized instruments. The result is big room techno over with what sounds like a cover version of a field recording being performed by software synths. These artificial nature sounds are largely lurkers, underscoring a bright three note motif that leads the way towards a large-scale symphonic breakdown. Actually the breakdown's a bit of a pile-up, in which all manner of wiggling synths come out of the trees to jockey for attention in a lengthy, beelike swarm that constitutes a good deal of the track's girth.
If Lig's original truly becomes a forest only during its dense and whirling climax, Space Dimension Controller's remix seems to emerge from directly from out of the sylvan depths, his murky, tripped-out mixing shimmering like shafts of sunlight through the trees, sending the digital forest far, far away, bound for outer space, converting Lig's Belgian techno into cosmic house. It reflects the same deft mix of jazzy rhythms and spacey keys that has made earlier SDC tracks like "The Love Quadrant" so unique. While they culled from a recognizable deep house palette, they were unafraid of going headier, more stoned and expansive, than has most often been the norm. One can't help but wonder whether calling it the 33 Degree Tape mix is a subtle way to rep old-school analog in the face of all this digital splendor. Lig's take may shine on big club systems, but SDC's will be the cut that will come to life on a good home stereo, where its drifty inclinations have room to take full flight.
Tracklist 01. Digital Forest
02. Digital Forest (SDCs 33 Degree Tape Mix)