Damian Lazarus‘ Memory Box (club remix) elicits a slight chuckle with its pitched down, machine vocals depicting an artificial gentleman’s malfunctioning memory. As filtered speak-and-spell sounds bleep percussively, our ailing robot complains via a limerick like pair of rhyming couplets. Crisp snares and hats counterpoint his tale of names not remembered and conversations ruined by faulty memory against a backdrop of subdued rhythms.

The B side, Spinning (Sasha remix), is a funky collection of interlocking loops kept in motion by a drive train of snappy beats and rolling, analogue bass. The word “spinning” is repeated periodically while snippets of the sample are looped. Ethereal vocals eventually enter, haphazardly sliced into thin, echoing sheets and messily layered into pretty, pitch-varied piles. The beats and bass fall out as the track slows while reaching its midway point. A variety of bells report until an alarm like, guitarish lead reverberates, signaling that the track’s throttle is being pushed forward again. The ringing continues as the rhythms crescendo back, accompanied by squelchy synths.

Read the rest of this entry »