Agent Side Grinder – Rema/x (Album – Progress Productions)
Genre/Influences: Electro-Wave, Electro-Pop, Gothic.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Swedish formation Agent Side Grinder last year struck back with their fifth album entitled “A/X” and featuring their new singer Emanuel Åström. In my opinion this album belongs to the best releases from 2019. While the band is actually working on a new full length, the album has been exposed to the remixing skills of other artists while there’s also one new song featured.
Content: The 9 original songs from “A/X” have been remixed. The tracklist is a bit different while we also get 4 extra songs featuring the previously unreleased “The Archives”. Let’s start with this new song, which has something pretty Bowie-like and yet it also sounds in the eclectic style of Agent Side Grinder.
Remixes have been done by a much diversified selection of artists: Ash Code, Antipole feat. Paris Alexander, Adsol, Tobias Bernstrup, Delphine Coma, Siri Karlsson, Luminance, Hidden Operator and Buzz Kull. The remixes are pretty diversified, moving from pure Electro-Dance to melancholic to pure minimalism to Electro-Wave.
After the 9 remixes you get a little bonus taking off with the previously mentioned new song “The Archives” plus extra remixes from 2 album songs by She Pleasures Herself and Kiss Of The Whip. There also is the song “Döden På Lätt Svenska”, which is one I honestly don’t know and has been reworked by Diskoteket.
+ + + : Agent Side Grinder already is a band with an open-minded spectrum of influences and this remix-album only increases the diversity. According to me there’s one absolute highlight, which is the pretty danceable and intelligent remix of “Allisin Sane (No.2)” by Adsol. Other noticeable remixes are the powerful “Inner Noises” remixed by Ash Code and the ultra Minimal-sounding “MM / CM” remixed by Hidden Operator. I’ll also mention the unavoidable “Doppelgänger” remixed by Luminance. The new song “The Archives” is a nice little bonus.
– – – : I can’t say that the remixes are adding a real bonus to the original edit of “A/X” by the exception of Adsol –a Greek EBM driven project I discovered by the EP “Endzeit”.
Conclusion: This kind of album will maybe please some fans to complete the growing Agent Side Discography while DJ’s will find some alternative edits to play.
Best songs: “Allisin Sane (No.2) – Adsol Remix”, “MM / CM – Hidden Operator’s Voodoo Dub Mix”, “Inner Noises – Ash Code Remix”, “The Archives”, “Decompression – Delphine Coma Remix”.
Rate: (7).
Artist: www.agentsidegrinder.com / www.facebook.com/agentsidegrinder
Label: www.progress-productions.com / www.facebook.com/progresspro
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
