MT. Sims – Revaluation (12” – Punch Records) Review @ Sideline Magazine

The story of Mount Sims is peculiar, with all its changes in style and label. From the golden years of Gigolo to Hungry Eye Records, the adopted Berliner seems now to be getting comfortable at Punch Records. Punch itself is the owner of another unique past, with a long list of releases in experimental, folk and bizarre industrial sounds. Their style swerve happened about two years ago, giving a new home to dark electronic rock and pop. From the union of these two creatures comes “Revaluation”, a limited vinyl edition that includes remixes of some “Happily Ever After Again” songs revisited by many of those electronic artist that have stood side by side with Mt. Sims since the begging of his career, such as Magas, Christopher Kah or Adriano Canzian, and some of the up and coming Punch artists such as Crossover. The result is more for a collector of Mt. Sims stuff than for a normal follower. Including the original “Fragile Breaks Fragile” already justifies purchasing the record. The excellent song unites the new, darker and rocker Sims with the remnants of his catchier, disco past. Just a phrase like ‘to walk away from chance is to be murdered by regret, but how many times can one open up a wound’ deserves a thousand records being sold. However, the remixes on side A are harsh and merciless. The repetitive spatial electronics of Christopher Kah and the primitive industrial of Magas simply don’t catch my attention, however interesting they might be in their respective styles. Side B does an interesting job in combining three visions of “Unwound” in a way that could almost be an elongated version of the song. Adriano takes the song into a thick broken beat world, full of interesting arrangements, while Crossover slows the pitch down and pushes the industrials up for a dense mid paced song. To close, Equitant strangely combines both approaches with a cleaner, more ‘pop’ touch for a great ending. Sure, it’s not anything we can call novel, but the fresh versions can be interesting for those many that are in awe of Mt. Sims capacity of always being dark and painfully melodic; catchy and torn, delicate and tough.
(Catalina Isis Milan:6/7)Catalina Isis Milan.

www.punchrecords.it
review @ sideline magazine

Review of MT.SIMS "Revaluation" E.P (by Jim Noir)

Few months after the publication of its last excellent opus " Happily Ever After... Again ", MT.SIMS presents his new E.P " Revaluation " on the great post-love/pre-orgasm italian label : Punch Records. Notice to the fetishists and the amateurs of beautiful objects (in these currents times where the digital download is regrettably a king),this new E.P of Mt. SIMS appears under the shape of a magnificent marbled vinyl , true collector's object besides because it is strictly limited to 330 hand-numbered copies. This summer release will pour in your lounge and\or on the clubs's dance floors , a refreshing black aura, real blow of blizzard in full heat wave ! On 12'' "Revaluation"E.P, 3 tracks of the previous opus are dissected, ground and remixed by diverse artists of varied musical horizons. The original version of " Fragile Breaks Fragile " opens the ball , divine catchy song , brilliantly dark ,this track will bewitch you for sure with its magnetics ,strongs & beautiful lyrics "...We put ourselves in danger, knowing too much, feeling too much, we break ourselves in a collision..." Christopher Kah, famous French artist of the electro-techno old school alternative scene reinvent this same track with its very personal musical decorum: great weird obsessive technoids rythm ,hard beats with addictive analog synths sounds bring a new dimension to " Fragile Breaks Fragile ": successful mission. The american Magas proposes a second reading,sort of minimal-electro-punk version of "Fall Apart", rich in rough analogicals pulsations ,his cover is completely different from the original version (very post-punk/death-rock / batcave.), a very interesting cover. On the face B of the vinyl, pleasant surprises continue with the excellent remix of the subversive italian Adriano Canzian of "Unwound" who signs probably one the most interesting cover of the E.P; he transfigures totally the down-tempo and freezing rythm of the original to take it on territories or you can drown yourselves in the sweat of the dancefloor with a huge blast of electro-technoids distortions and harsh beats : the perfection is near !
The Americans of Crossover and Equitant (project led by Ray Heflin, boss of the very good Black Montanas label) will prefer to reinterpret "Unwound" with the blackness and the catchy icy flavor of the original stuff. Crossover ,with a lot of, talent widened the atmosphere by bringing terrible reverbs and experimental ghostly sounds of the most beautiful effect,a threatening and intriguing good cover.
Equitant preserves his electro-techno-minimal /cold-E.B.M sound which makes its popularity but prefers to remain on the weft musical of the subtle original song.
Equitant takes a malicious delight in slowing down the track while keeping a somber dancy interesting rythm by bringing magnificents synthetics spatials waves making all the charm of his cover. The often risky & dangerous exercise of doing remixes is widely successful here. Try an another 'clair-obscur' visitation of the original tracks of Matt Sims cause a true revaluation & a real new interpretation of his world are assured by the subtility & the quality of each remixers.
Thus if you want to dance in the sweatiness of the summer, turn all your lights off, turn your speakers at full volume, remove any sharps objects from your immediate reach...unless of course you like to dance on glass.
" Revaluation" is coming !

JIM NO1R

MT.SIMS - Revaluation - Review (The D-Side) Italy

MT.SIMS - Revaluation - Review (The D-Side) Italy

More detailed information about the biography of Berlin can draw from the last review of the album "Happily Ever After ... Again": what you'll hear recorded between the grooves of this twelve-inch limited edition sponsored by Punch Records is a sequence of remakes traits mentioned by full-length assigned to five different artists who, by making significant and multiple de-structure of two specific tracks plus one, individually interpret the meanings-emotional sonic suggest that the six songs to their current concern. Opening with the symbolic original version of "Fragile Fragile Breaks" followed by the reinvention of itself by French electro-worker Chrisopher Kah which proposes post-punk song further adorned with danceable electronic interventions from track and transform it into A Passage In Time Remix. U.S. and Illinois dedicated to electro-grunge, Magas outlines for "Fall Back" a tense version Violent ARP Remix hypnotic process emphases synthetic sour aftertaste, while the techno-man Italian Adriano Canzian sketches "Unwound" punctuated by pulses of programming and neurotic electro-minded solutions. Crossover reworks spectrally "Unwound" modifying largely overshadowed nell'ossatura rhythmic adding more, claustrophobic sequence of dense drumming laboratory and atmospheric effects breakdown / echoes. The techno-project Texan Equitant remixes the last track again, "Unwound", adding it to dry and percussive beats a foggy input key, turning it into a valuable artificial electro-waver. Release of good thickness and microscopic fragment to be added to the mosaic of diligent collector alternative: I am sincerely pleased with the flexible log Matt Sims always full of non-ordinariness: definitely a worthy continuation of an album that convinced. Development on several occasions in the basic track-list titles belongs to the earlier work. Now, after this immediate testing maxi ep, require an MS next appropriate test. I expect something on the edge of excellence.

(Translated from Italian)

Source:
The D-Side (Italy)

MT.SIMS - Revaluation - Review (Chain D.L.K.) Italy

MT.SIMS - Revaluation - Review (Chain D.L.K.) Italy

If I'm not wrong this is the first remix release that Punch Records ever released and I think that this is another sign of the change that Tairy started with the CD compilation released back in 2008. Taken from the latest Mt. Sims album released always on Punch Records, the original version "Fragile breaks fragile" opens the A side of this limited to 300 copies colored 12" and it serves as reference point for whom didn't purchase the album, to understand what kind of de-construction did the re-mixers. Christopher Kah, starts immediately reducing to the bone the same song focusing on few analog synth sounds and on obsessive rhythms. Magas, who released recently "Violent arp" for Punch, picked up "Fall back" and gave to it the "Violent arp" treatment keeping guitars and vocals from the original tune and substituting bass lines and drum sounds with dirty distorted synthetic ones. Side B opens with the first out of three versions of "Unwound". Adriano Canzian created a great electro/techno blast with distortions and hard beats. Crossover dilated the atmosphere creating a mid tempo menace made of stops and go, reverb... almost a dub electro version. Equitant close the EP with their "Die geistermaschine remix" of the song, they kept the original structure (they only slowed it down) and gave to it a seducing electro flavor. This is another fine release by Punch Records!

Review by: Maurizio Pustianaz

Source:
Chain D.L.K. (Italy)

Out Now On Punch Records! MT.SIMS "Revaluation" inc. Equitant Remix!

Out Now On Punch Records! MT.SIMS "Revaluation"
Featuring remixes by: Adriano Canzian, Christopher Kah,
Crossover, Equitant and Magas. Ltd. ed. 12" maxi EP.
Mixed colour vinyl - Outfold cover. Limited edition of 330 hand-numbered copies!

Listen and purchase here

Mt. Sims - Unwound (Equitant's Die Geistermaschine Remix) by Equitant