[Infiné]

What kind of music would people like Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Robert Johnson, or Johann Sebastian Bach be making if they were alive today? Would they have stuck to their roots and continued to play the music they were famous for and helped make famous? Or would they have updated their existing systems and ideas, used the latest technology and reflected their newer influences? It’s highly likely they would choose the latter (if you can look past the sheer logistical impossibilities of Bach especially surviving for so long). A group like Aufgang may well present us with the closest approximation of what someone like Bach may have sounded like some three hundred years after his time. The combination of Francesco Tristano, Rami Khalifé — both classically trained pianists from the prestigious Julliard school — and Aymeric Westrich, a formidable percussionist in his own right, lends itself to an interesting new take on both classical and electronic music. Taken from their self-titled debut album, “Barock” is reinterpreted by Wareika, Mondkopf and Robert Hood who all personalize the track and take it in whole new directions.

Hood applies his sonic scalpel to the track, slicing and reconstructing with absolute precision. At first it sounds like just another day in the lab for Hood, crafting immaculate minimal mosaics, until he brings in elements of the piano from the original, taking the track to a whole new level. The inclusion of the bright, baroque piano line against Hood’s sterile, razor sharp production is one of the best things I’ve heard from him in a long time, and given the high standard of his output that’s saying something. French producer Mondkopf takes those pianos and slows them right down, burying them beneath layers of thick, gritty synths. It almost sounds like an electro house track on valium (and without all the terrible cheese). Wareika also turn out a superb remix, reinterpreting “Barock” into a sprawling eleven minute deep house track that may not show many obvious traces of the original track but shines nonetheless. The many textures layered upon each other are buoyed by a simple, clear cut bass line that helps to drive the somewhat heedless track. An outstanding collection of remixes for one of electronic and classical music’s most innovative bands.