[Kontra-Musik]

The Swedish producer Andreas Tilliander has long been a shapeshifter in electronic music. Under numerous names, he’s been instrumental in the development of “clicks & cuts” with Mille Plateaux and ambient IDM under the Mokira name. After being nominated twice, he won a Swedish Grammy for his album World Industries in 2005. His reach extended into mastering and running a label, both under the name Repeatle. His brand of richly layered, thick electronics carries over in this mastering work, showing a keen ear for sonics of all types. The Mokira guise was last seen in 2009 on Type Records with the billowing, subtle Album. Now in 2011, however, he’s bolstered Mokira ambience with a more pronounced dub techno sound structure. On this three-part 10″ series for Kontra-Musik, his shift in rhythm is ideally suited to being remixed by Silent Servant, Echospace, and Redshape.

The first installment is called “Time Track,” where Mokira is at his most gentle while belying the distress to come. Synths roll out like waves and dissolve into ambient dub textures that would sound right at home next to tracks by Pole or Dub Tractor. As the layers build, buried rhythms start to emerge. This very slight rhythmic element gives Silent Servant his direction as he pushes them to the hilt, winding the ambient melodies around the beat and rendering any semblance to the original moot. “Axis Audio” might best be described as controlled cacophony, a skittering, tumbling stew of echo chambers and crinkling sheets of noise which lumbers forcefully to a shuddering stop. Of the three original tracks in this series it’s the most striking, bridging dub, techno, dubstep, and noise with a stately grace. Echospace turns the noise down and reforms the percussion into a fast-paced stomp with the echo chambers turning their focus to a looping maze of electronic grit. This is what most remixes aspire to be, an artist showing respect for the original by highlighting the ways in which it can be skewed to a new audience.

Where “Axis Audio” was gritty like a factory grinding to a halt, “Manipulation Musik” spreads it’s grit out over mournful strings and submerged pads. The sounds of the sea can be heard in this track, lonely and vast, but with digital squalls of harsh electronics cutting into the melancholy. It’s a very narrative track, showing an ambition hinted at in “Time Track” and “Axis Audio” but only fully realized here. Redshape purportedly used only sounds from the original for his remix of “Manipulation Musik”; this is striking considering how reduced the original rhythms are. His version starts with clipped percussion and injects bursts of grainy noise to build his melody. By the track’s middle the noise almost overwhelms the drums, as if the original’s ghost is coming back to haunt Redshape. The most interesting remixes always come when the artist and remixer sound completely different, and this series by Mokira is a perfect example. Where Mokira’s experimental bent puts sound design above all else, his editors excel at purposing those textures for the dance floor. Mokira for the club? It’s just the latest shape he’s taken.