CD Review - Positive, 12 Feb 2002

German Michael Fakesch and Italian - born Chris De Luca have been called on for remix / reconstruction duties for such luminaries as Bjork and the Wu-tang Clan in the past, and 'Vice Versa' sees them adding treatments to Warp stalwarts Plaid and The Anti - Pop's Consortium's Beans. Given the left-field whirr of Funkstorung's arrangements, it was inevitable that Warp's roster would beckon, but their scope is wide enough to encompass A Guy Called Gerald and (where arbiters of cool fear to tread) Jean - Michel Jarre, as well as expected liaisons with exponents of the electric German underground.

As such, this not necessarily a connoisseur's tipple. The set begins with the atmospherics applied to Plaid's 'Eyen', but the ambience is not typical, and their production of Jay -Jay Johansen's 'I Want Some Fun' sharply deviates into big -beat (with small 'b's) territory, with a distinctly French lounge appeal of the ennui infected vocal.

The duo's love of Old Skool hip-hop comes In Full Effect with the nervy feedback on Ike Yard's 'N.C.R.', the original hailing from 1982. The stop / go treatment combines with the original Electro groove, a nod perhaps to the eighties retronuevo of the present.

Interestingly, its with Jarre on the closing track, 'C'est La Vie' that the meeting of styles is played off to best effect, where the ethereality of Natacha Atlas' vocal collides with the pressing - plant drum effects to give an emotive, cinematic tension.

Indeed, the elegiac quality on that track and Tocotronic's 'Morgen Wird Heute Sein 'gives this story - so -far of Funkstorung's studio exploits a balance that may otherwise not be present for works created to be consumed in one sitting. All in all, a decent excursion into Funkstorung's version for 'Rhythm-orientated electronic dance music', as they say in Germany.

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