Ben Sims – New Blood

The remixes come from techno’s top table. Rolando’s take on “New Blood” delivers an injection of spacey tribalism into the mix, while Robert Hood’s masterful version sees metallic tom-toms and the tsk-tsk of the hats smeared all over a gritty funk underpinning. That Swedish duo Skudge can’t quite live with the pace set by their illustrious peers is understandable; their rerub of “Slow Motion” doesn’t veer much from the original aside from a fattened up bassline and a slightly more insistent kick. This is music that’s not fancy or overly trendy, just reliably Ben Sims.