BALUT017: Three Parts Remix EP
May 18, 2013
Published by 
Following the release of the Polar Pair album late last year, here’s a quality pack of remixes for six tracks, divided to three parts.
Part 1 is the more straightforward club package, containing remixes by two of Tel-Aviv’s most promising duos. The first remix is delivered by Red Axes, the new hot shots now signed to the French stable I’m a Cliche. The duo gravitated towards the punky-funky Indifferent, and added their signature sounding rugged disco assault. Deep’a and Biri, with a new album to be released on Gigolo Records and a cut on Derrick May’s recent We Love Detroit Compilation, took the sublime disco anthem Star, and transformed it into a Berghain techno stormer.
Part 2 takes the tempo down a notch and a couple of miles high into the stratosphere. Generation Bass’ maestro, SaBBo, treats Not Real with a heavy stomping beat, which sounds new as much as it brings to mind classic Leftfield tracks.
The second remix here is by Botanika’s Bunny on Acid, now adopting a new moniker, Grá, that matches his deep and intricate sound, with a new album coming soon on Studio Rockers. He’s take on album opener, Let’s Go, is a dubby trip through reverberating spaces and a disjointed 808 beat that holds it all together.
Part 3, as its name – Self-Mutilation – suggests, has a couple of remixes done by Polar Pair themselves. Picked from the remix series they released every other week via their soundcloud page, it contains a deep and slow house workout for the soulful Hope You Know, and a new wave pastiche meets techno on the Fantasy Love remix.
All 3 covers designed by Afik Naim
BALUTLP001: Polar Pair (Album)
Polar Pair, aka Malkiel Grossman & Nadav Ravid, have been making music together for almost twenty years. It took the world about the same time to catch up with their vision.
It’s impossible to box Polar Pair’s music into one neat definition; The gamut is simply too wide. The music oscillates from throbbing dance-floor tracks to R’n'B ballads, primal post-punk to cutting-edge bass music, hip-hop to disco, catchy pop to experimental beats. These influences can sometimes be easily spotted and sometimes they’re blended together, as if that was their purpose all along.
Malkiel and Nadav have been meeting religiously at their Polar Pair studios for years, banging heads and letting off pent up, notoriously muggy Tel-Aviv steam, churning out banger after banger. Some of these were released hot-off- the-press, straight to their tumblr, while the rest – the gems, the jewels, the Ferran Adriàs of bangers – culminated in this album. Born with the original working title “Every Song is Different”, the album relishes in living up to this: it swings between entire genres, colours, gender-roles and moods, varying deliciously in tone and atmosphere; It nails pastiches to the past and takes bold stabs at defining the future, layering familiar, comforting voices with bright, unheard ones.
These may all seem like symptoms of bi-polar disorder, but they are the unlikely ingredients that make up the new Polar Pair album.
Released October 1st, 2012
Booklet designed by Tubi
Cover designed by Heela Harel || helloheela.tumblr.com
Cover image by Germanex || germanex.deviantart.com
BALUT015: Polar Pair – Cry x3 (ft Eyal Glass)
Release Date: September 3rd, 2012
With a new album just around the corner and a heap of praise for their latest “Hip Shakin Mama” vinyl EP, including XLR8R & Feel My Bicep, here’s ”Cryx3”, the proper 1st single from Polar Pair’s upcoming, self-titled full-length.
The original track, which started as a R&B pastiche, evolved into a future soul gem, with rippling sub aquatic bass, splintered beats and the soulful crooning of Eyal Glass (Deep Sea Creatures). The remix pack includes a footwork-come-drum’n’bass interpretation from the rising star of the UK bass scene, Deft, and a vocoder-heavy remix from LA’s controllerism maestro, Side Brain, who infects the track with a completely new melody and a sun drenched boogie vibe.
Cover designed by Heela Harel
BALUT016: Cohen – War / Bass It – Out Now!
Release Date: August 20th, 2012
“WAR, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing”. As peace seeking Israelis we have no doubt regarding this, and Cohen’s second release on Botanika gives a fierce interpretation to the issue. An intense beat structure draws the line between LA’s Low End Theory and the London bruk/Tribal Grime scenes, marrying the restless Arabian Nights spirits with mischievous electronics with an Aladdin swagger. At the right moment, “War” will send the dancefloor into Dybbuk madness.
Cohen’s recent relocation to LA strengthened his ties with the thriving beats scene, is exemplified to the max on flipside “Bass it”. The track is a heavy bass driven hip hop beat that will appeal to dubstep/bass heads as much as to Danny Breaks/Tipper aficionados. Check it out on his Boiler Room set back in March, alongside Jeremiah Jae, Samiyam, Gaslamp Killer et al.
Cover design by Gali Erez
Official CohenBeats landing page
BALUT014: Rejoicer – Abstract Flight
Rejoicer is a busy renaissance man. Working consistently under a number of aliases and in various collaborations, he is also an illustrator (also responsible for the artwork on this release), a film maker (now in the process of completing a documentary about Congo Natty) and is heavily involved in running the Raw Tapes label – which in 2 years released over 25 EP’s and albums by more than a dozen artists – and has no plans to stop until achieving a beats paradise.
The Rejoicer moniker is the most electronic-tinged of his different guises, influenced by the early sounds of Kitaro, Eno and Raymond Scott, and his debut single for Botanika is the 3rd installment in our Beats mini-series. It features the title track, Abstract Flight, a funky modern hip hop bounce that headflips mid-way into an aquatic head-nod, culminating in a resurgence from the depths by its recomposed synth-lines. Magical Pass is more of a somber melodic affair, punctuated by a hypnotic bass reverberating throughout. The EP closes with a remix by fellow Raw Tapes artist Radixx, who transforms the playful elements of Abstract Flight into some fierce bruk&beats action with plenty of swing.
Rejoicer can be found bouncing back & forth between Tel-Aviv and Berlin, where ha has set shop in 2010, collaborating with DJ Werd, soul singer Bajka, Amewu and his fellow Raw Tapes heads, as well as performing live with Buttering Trio, his intriguing partnership with singer Keren Dunitz and bass-player Beno Hendler (Balkan Beat Box), as well as making beats for Israeli hip hop artists or doing more solo work under the samples based Guadaloop moniker.
Release Date: June 18th, 2012
