BnB Review: fabric 60 - Dave Clarke
Written by Youri Jozee
Electro/Techno - "Fabric 60 will not be remembered as one of the most innovating Fabric mixes of recent times, but that clearly hasn’t been the objective..."
Instead of continuing its recent course by adding another up and coming artist to its catalog, the kind folks over at fabric chose for a veteran DJ/producer to helming the latest edition of one of the best compilation series around. But it’s a bit of an oddity too, because why did it take such a long time for them to approach Dave for a mix? We’ll probably never know, but we don’t really care anyway: we’re glad they finally did. fabric 60 is Dave Clarke at his very best: ruthless, energetic, unconventional and edgy. Contrary to his weekly radio White Noise, in which Dave mixes up IDM, techno, punk, industrial etc., this compilation has become a pretty straight forward affair with techno and electro being the main ingredients, topped with Dave’s fast and often hectic mixing skills. We sure heard that before, not in the last place from Clarke himself (remember his awesome World Service comps?), so he better comes up with something extraordinary…
Lucky for us, he did. It may not be the most diverse mix out on fabric, but no one mixes it up dirtier than ol’ Dave. It would be common sense to open with electro and then move on to techno as the proverbial pedal to the metal, but common sense is for the weak and so we’ll find ourselves listening to a bunch of blazing techno cuts first. After the sinister ambient pulses on Raudive’s Shiver Wires, we’re treated to some seriously mental techno. It may be basic, thank God it never gets minimal. Tommy Four Seven’s Armed 3 is the kind of gritty, slo-paced by apocalyptic techno, while the mind-fucking, acid-driven Pride by Christiano Balducci switches to more hypnotic dimensions before plunging into the electropunk-ish Silence Complot by Cute Heels. Dave’s electro side starts to manifest itself after the stomping Aufstand by up and coming Gesaffelstein (be sure to check out his capital M
massive collab with The Hacker). And we must say, the electro part is the best part here. Sync 24’s We Rock Non-Stop (Heuristic Audio Remix) mixes distorted kicks to silk strings, delivering an electro track that’s both dark and lush at the same time. But what really got us off good are Dez Williams’ Foreign Object and Clatterbox’s Coolicon, which both are tracks so incredibly raw it almost becomes embarrassing.
Our verdict:
fabric 60 will not be remembered as one of the most innovating Fabric mixes of recent times, but that clearly hasn’t been the objective. It just kicks ass, simple as that. It’s merciless, dark, twisted and raw as fuck, and if you're a Clarke follower, you’re gonna love this one.
Rating: 7.4/10
Label: fabric
Release date: October 17th, 2011
Fabric 60 - Dave Clarke tracklist (move over the tracks to listen):
01 Raudive - Shiver [Wires]
02 Crotaphytus - Cnemidophorus Sexlineatus (The Mr. Pauli Monster Bass Guitar Remix) [Solar One]
03 Tommy Four Seven - Armed 3 [CLR]
04 Marc Romboy vs. Paris The Black Fu - Dark N Lovely (Kenny Larkin Remix) [Systematic]
05 Ray 7 & Malik Alston - I.D.F.D.F.I. [Truth Manifest]
06 Cristiano Balducci - Pride [Black Catcher]
07 Cute Heels - Silence Complot [Black Leather]
08 Stephane Signore - Sacrifice (Radical G - 2k11 Edit) [Patterns X-Series]
09 Gesaffelstein - Aufstand [Turbo]
10 Scape One - Time Falls (Dynarec Remix) [Cultivated Electronics]
11 Exzakt - Clarity (Lethal Agent Remix) [Monotone]
12 Sync 24 - We Rock Non-Stop (Heuristic Audio Remix) [Cultivated Electronics]
13 Heliopause - Destination Planet Earth [Robotmachine]
14 Dez Williams - Foreign Object [Battery Park Studio]
15 Clatterbox - Coolicon [unreleased]
16 w1b0 - Alternate Sequence [Outer Marker]
17 Baz Reznik - The Attic [DYFR]
