[International Deejay Gigolo]

When I read in July that Radio Slave would be joining hands with DJ Hell and P. Diddy on a 28-minute remix of the latter pair’s recent collabo, “The DJ,” I felt as though I had finally found the master plan behind my existence. “Go forth,” God seemed to be saying from between the lines of this bizarre Resident Advisor news blurb, “and review this record.”

My moment of clarity sprang not from any extra-special interest in the personnel. Despite his decades in the game and extensive back catalog, DJ Hell and his tough-guy electro hover just off my radar. Matt Edwards reveals a subtly avant-garde compositional impulse as Radio Slave, but his cinder block epics fill dance floors more cavernous than those I prefer to inhabit. And Biggie Smalls aside, P. Diddy doesn’t exactly engender much of my respect by reason of being, well, P. Diddy. Nor did my drive to tackle this remix derive from excitement over any limit-pushing it might engage in. One of the positives of the music industry’s gradual acceptance of digital releases is an artist’s ability to eschew formal constraints about song length: LCD Soundsystem, Lindstrøm, Ricardo Villalobos (twice!), and most recently Bruno Pronsato have all let 25+ minutes tease unforeseen brilliance and singularity out of their established sound palates. Nay, my interest in “The DJ” (Radio Slave Remix) stemmed from a continuing desire to see notions of good taste roughed up, the excitement of earning cool points while simultaneously losing cool points. DJ Hell, P. Diddy, Radio Slave, and 28 minutes — in the same sentence — collectively sounded like the ticket to unparalleled, if not revolutionary, cheese.

Upon finally getting my hands on this already legendary mp3, I’m a little shocked at how un-unhinged “The DJ” (Radio Slave Remix) has turned out. Surprisingly little has changed since Matt Edwards got his paws on the raw tracks. On Hell’s original from this year’s Teufelswerk double album, horror movie orchestral flourishes and grinding, sexed-up bass comprise the soapbox on which P. Diddy espouses the myriad benefits of the special disco mix. “You can’t even get into your thang on a four-minute version,” Diddy explains in his opening invocation. “This goes out to all the motherfuckers that like 15-20 minute versions of a motherfuckin’ record!” (One such motherfucker feels inclined to note that this original version illogically clocks in at a scant eight minutes.)

Radio Slave’s mix subjects Diddy’s already lame-ass commentary to the minimal effects assembly line of rapid chops, filters, bit destruction, and pitch drops. Slapped without rhyme or reason over Radio Slave’s sveltly techno-fied rhythm, Diddy proves an even greater hindrance to dance floor marinating (his word, and actually a pretty good one) than a brief run time ever could. His BlackBerry thankfully dies at around 13:30, and we’re treated to some uninterrupted headspace: Hell’s bass line, amidst slamming snares and exotic ambiance a la Edwards’ Quiet Village project, hypnotizes like only on-point Radio Slave can. The K-maze lasts for about four minutes before a breakdown and more Diddy malarkey, and yes, you will have barely enough time to get into your thang before you recommence hating this track. But it still has many minutes to redeem itself. A wormhole opening at about 21:00 lets in the non sequitor you may have been waiting for: Radio Slave aerosol-sprays delay-piano over his groove, and a Jus Ed-style underground house freak-out is born. As unsettlingly good vibes shimmer over the canyon, the remix achieves a kind of tenuous dance floor bliss. Whatever payoff ensues depends entirely on the number of decibels and scrambled brain cells involved.

Matt Edwards claims to have played 25 minutes of “The DJ” (Radio Slave Remix) at Fabric without boring anyone. I’d reckon if anyone could thread that needle, it’d be that master of monolithic boogie. But as for rest of us, I’m somewhat dubious. While I like the remix’s deranged end note, the preceding 20+ minutes don’t constitute a necessary pilgrimage. In a year featuring a track like Bruno Pronsato’s “The Make Up The Break Up,” which spends nearly 40 minutes making tiny sounds wiggle intricately towards far subtler ecstasy, Radio Slave’s entry into the fray feels a little cheap. My wish for wacky excess aside, this long-form thing is probably best approached seriously. It’d be tough to come away from this spirit journey denying Edwards has production chops, but he fails to reveal anything he couldn’t in his usual 11 or 12 minute epics. He should certainly try again, but he should do it with his own material and store blather-prone hip-hop moguls safely away in the Hamptons.