[Ostgut Ton]

Expectations greatly inform our record buying habits. What do you expect from Marcel Dettmann? If previous releases are to be believed it’s stripped down, no nonsense techno. What about from his friends Norman Nodge and the either incognito or actually-a-newcomer Wincent Kunth? More or less the same thing, and that is exactly what’s on display here with four remixes of Dettmann material which didn’t make the album.

Norman Nodge, who has been on a tear of remixes in the last 12 months, takes a decidedly single-minded approach to “Shift,” although for beating down a dingy dance floor it doesn’t really need much more. His simple, splattering 4/4 rhythms soften the ground for understated bleep patterns to bite through, occasionally punctuated by crowd noise or calls to “work!” True to its name, “Unrest” is a little more mental than its predecessor, unleashing a torrent of plucked electricity cable hits and off-camera scrapes, all the while a seriously warped bass line moans just beneath the surface. The shadowy Wincent Kunth appears on the flip to flesh things out further than Nodge, but not by much. The downtrodden synth line, foggy pads and low slung bass running through tone down the intensity of “Vertigo” (scything hi-hats excepted), while the dubbed expanses of “Wound Up” reveal hidden razor edges as the track unfolds and make it the EP’s best and most likely to be played out cut. In fact, the whole release will likely see some airtime, although more often as segues rather than destinations of a DJ set. While they don’t really lend themselves to many spins in the living room, their status as quality DJ tools is hard to deny. But then again, what did you expect?