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About Refreaked
Product Description An inspired set of remixes from Vienna-based dZihan & Kamien's Freaks & Icons opus. Remixers include UFO, Hefner and Atjazz. The moods range from thumping minimalism through sensual Latin vibes and jazzy abstractions, along with subtle infusions of Turkish tribal flavor. Capped with a previously unreleased bonus track from dZihan & Kamien, Refreaked sequences its infectious beats and vibrant melodies to stunning effect Amazon.com Eight tracks from Dzihan & Kamien's debut album get the subtlest of rerubs. No major missteps here, but then again neither are there any mind-blowing revolutions, with most of the remixers opting for slight changes over complete overhauls. inject a little adrenaline into "Just You & I." unfortunately steers the proceedings in the other direction with a lethargic reading of "Slowhand Hussein." Eddy & Dus keep the pop structure of "Smile" mostly intact, simply throwing in a little extra mellow percussion, while Fox 42 engage in a slightly more adventurous, trancier deconstruction of the same track. At Jazz bring "After" out of the humid confines of the R&B club and into the vast skies of the outback. Mum are the only folks who truly get their freak on, reducing "Streets of Istanbul" to a tapestry of human groans and low bass burps. Throw in two agreeable Dzihan & Kamien tracks not available on the original record and you've got yourself almost an hour of dependable, if not definitive, downtempo. --Bob Michaels Review "Out of the same pristine bag as Kruder & Dorfmeister. Beautifully crafted mood pieces" -- Metro "Sun-kissed downtempo and funky grooves...spoonfuls of energizing percussion...another essential accompaniment to your collection." -- URB Magazine About the Artist "Preparing a remix album is like going out for a night in Las Vegas," says Mario Kamien. "You never know what you're going to get." The Viennese duo of Vlado dZihan (pronounced Jee-Hahn) and Mario Kamien (pronounced Kammy-en) rolled the dice by inviting a number of producer friends to remix tracks from their first album, last year's Freaks & Icons. What they got was a winning handful of tracks, ranging from trippy down tempo to abstract spacey excursions. The gamble paid off handsomely, and Refreaked is the result. Actually, Refreaked has been in the works for a long time - even before the release of Freaks & Icons. dZihan & Kamien's initial success came with the Eurodance hit "der Bauch" (literally, "the belly"), which they released with their band MC Sultan. This was followed by the release of the single "Before/After" in 1998 -- and almost immediately, the remixing began. Matthew "J + M" Herbert's remix of "Before" and the Atjazz remix of "After" served as a musical prequel to dZihan & Kamien's first album. Both remixes, appropriately, appear now on Refreaked. "We have always been curious about how different people reshape our music," Kamien says. For this project, the duo approached a diverse group of artists. "Most of them we know personally. For some we did a remix -- Menu B, for example. Some guys we know from DJing and playing music on stage (Fauna Flash, Eddy & Dus, Mum)." And of course two were already known quantities: Atjazz's "After" mix sported pounding rhythms and swirling ney (an Arabic cane flute). Herbert's "Before," with its minimal vocals, choppy keyboards, and acid jazz drum programming, sounded like after-hours at some modern version of the legendary Hot Club de France. Several of the remixers seized on dZihan & Kamien's longtime love of Near Eastern music. "The Eastern or ethnic vibe is part of our DNA," Kamien explains. Mum's remix of "Streets of Istanbul" fires a machine gun of very Western samples, but then mixes in Middle Eastern sounds to provide a melodic center to the piece. Perhaps the most inventive and original remix on Refreaked is the UFO version of "Homebase." A trip-hop opening with a modal Near Eastern tinge leads to an increasingly virtuostic display of sampl
