Daniel Grau – Reworks Vol. 2 by Box Aus Holz

After Daniel Wang and Jules Etienne set the bar very high with their remixes for „Robot Magico“ and „Disco Fantasy“ by Daniel Grau (SK280), it’s now time for the next three songs by the forgotten Venezuelan Cosmic Disco producer to come under the knife.

With his debut „Rivers Of The Red Planet“ (just out on Tartelet Records) 21-year-old Berlin based Max Graef is making massive waves right now across all borders. Still he found a slot in his busy schedule to enhance three songs out of Daniel Grau’s elusive archive – together with befriended DJs/producers from the Oye Records entourage. Upgrading all of them in a state-of-the-art cutting-edge fashion. That’s how „Tren Del Espacio“ (originally released on the 1978 album „El Sonido Magico De Daniel Grau“) suddenly becomes a straight forward slamming house track with added Caribbean spice mid-in. A completely different approach is applied by Graef and Labuzinski on the remix for „Nunca Conocí Amor Igual“ (off the album „440 Toker“ from 1982). The vocals by Laurye McGregor are stifled by a menacing dubsteppy killer beat and only slosh to daylight occasionally. An impressive and awe-inspiring deconstruction maybe also Madlib or The Alchemist would come up with if stuffed with enough medication. Make sure you serve this cold!

And then there’s the collaboration of Graef with Oye Records honcho Markus Lidner aka Delfonic. Also with this remix of „Delirio En Fa Menor“ (off the 1976 LP „Mas Alla De Las Estrellas“) you can literally feel the affinity towards what we used to call leftfield hiphop. A badass beat framework binds the ever collapsing samples of the original. It’s like Graef and Delfonic hold a picture of the original tune in their hands and then tearing it in half, just to piece it back together again back-to-front. This is adulteration by permission. Or to put it in another way: This is how you get away with murder. Another milestone in Max Graef’s still juvenile career!