[Apnea]

Miguel Sar, better known as Tadeo, is one of the few producers making minimal techno whose work continually interests me post-mnml glut. His productions are often spiny and spiked with nuanced loops, making for tracks utilitarian enough for industrious DJs and bountifully ear-catching for those who go long and linear. His work for Cray1 Labworks, Alex Under’s Cmyk Musik, Apnea and his own Cyclical Tracks, as well as a boatload of remixes for Dusty Kid, Xpansul, Friendly People, Damian Schwartz and Kevin Gorman (among others) have positioned the young, Madrid-based producer for big things in 2008. The first evidence of this are the two big names remixing his “Cosmos” EP for Apnea: Cassy and Substance (Peter Kuschnereit).

Experience tells us if you hand Substance a track like the gaseous beauty, “Reflection Nebula 065n,” it’ll return with harder edges and a degree in dub. Indeed, Kuschnereit’s resolute dub reverberations reinforce the open spaces of the original while leaving room for blaring bass tones and melodic stabs to precisely ricochet. That’s well and good, but it was Cassy’s “Moving On Mix” which initially grabbed my attention. She reacts to the loopy and restrained “IO” with some choice loops of her own — a smudged two note riff draped over classic 808 rhythms, and a wordless, sultry vocal line — from which she barely deviates. Slipped between some of the other infinitely oscillating tunes floating around these days, “IO” could cause a small ruckus on the dance floor. Interestingly enough, both on-duty remixers amplify some of Tadeo’s best traits, suggesting that they, too, know the inherent power of his creations. He’s also featured twice on Marcel Dettmann’s Berghain 02 mix out this June. Perhaps 2008 will be the year a broader audience will hear that as well.