- Get ready to be totally sick of this song if you aren’t already. The speed garage beats and big wobbly bassline are functional, if a little anonymous, but the ‘beeper beeper beeper’ chorus is more infectious than bird flu and gives the track the pop edge it needs for hugeness. Kid Sister’s rap alternates between charming and clunky but feels necessary to avoid this being too spare for the house parties and populist dancefloors where it fits best.
This track crosses a lot of genre boundaries (I’ve heard it played on Rinse FM as well as by Nu Rave DJs) and the absolutely stunning selection of remixes they’ve put on here reflect that. A-Trak covers the electro angle, Fake Blood is dark and break-y, Redsoul takes it in a housier direction, and Sunship turns in an amazing mix which brings out the garage influences in the track.
A-Trak’s mix reflects his hip-hop background with its sudden changes of direction and breakbeat rhythm. Nimbler and more polyrhythmic than most modern electro, but still with the strong midrange riff that this style demands the result is original without being alienating. Interestingly he doesn’t use too much of his girlfriend’s vocal though.
Fake Blood is a fast rising star with his mixes for Armand van Helden and Bonde do Role and his mix here is more in the same vein – forceful but in a ‘drugs gone wrong’ way not a perky way. The samples bend and distort while the bass wobbles and the whole effect is sickening in a deeply satisfying way.
My favourite of the bunch, though, is still Sunship’s mix, probably because I still basically think UK garage is the finest dance genre ever to have existed. It’s very subtle what he does to the track, but the best way I can describe it is to say he gives it ‘body logic’. Meaning that Count and Sinden’s original, although catchy, is actually quite hard to dance to. Sunship tweaks the bassline to make it more stepping and less flabby, and adds an enormous riff that’s half rave and half garage to tie it all together. He also chops and flips Kid Sister’s vocal so that it suddenly sits perfectly with the track. The end result gives a definite and unified rhythm to the track and realizes it’s full anthemic potential. It’ll be a shame if snobbery means this mix is only played by bassline DJs this year and I’d encourage anyone who normally only likes ‘serious’ techno to still give it a listen as there’s a lot of depth here.
Overall, massive kudos to Domino for their selection of remixers. There’s really something for everyone, even if the Redsoul mix isn’t quite up to the standard of the others.
TracklistA1 Beeper
A2 Beeper (Fake Blood Remix)
A3 Beeper (RedSoul Remix)
B1 Beeper (Sunship Vocal Mix)
B2 Beeper (A-Trak Remix)