Black Devil In Dub

Chronique

What could be more devilish than a decently atmospheric but insipidly monotonous and ultimately fairly tepid techno record? How about that same record again...twice! That's not exactly what Bernard Fevre is offering here on this companion release to his 2006 "comeback" album, 28 After, but it's distressingly not far off. The first half of this release features After's six tracks reprised in "dub" form, which even upon close back-to-back listening reveal relatively few alterations from the original versions. Apart from sparser vocals (which hardly help matters, engagement-wise) and somewhat more reverb, you'd have to be pretty familiar with the already quite samey electro-disco on the first record to notice or care about the differences here...in which case these dubs might actually hold some appeal. The second half of In Dub contains additional remixes of the same six cuts by a handful of more or less like-minded producers. While respectable, and certainly a more varied listening experience than either the original album or the dub program, most of these remixes don't stray too far from the mold. Elitechnique, Prins Thomas, and Black Mustang gussy up their respective selections with additional servings of pulsating synths, bongos, and disco handclaps, but don't deviate from the Devil's brisk, twitchy robotic pulse. In Flagranti do switch things up a bit on "Coach Me," slowing it down to funk it up and bring it a little more in line with the cosmic disco vibe, while Quiet Village offer a much calmer and -- hey -- actually dubby spin on "I Regret the Flower Power," which is fairly rote but still winds up as probably the most distinctive and pleasurable thing on here -- not that that's saying too much.

© K. Ross Hoffman /TiVo