Ross Harper’s acclaimed recent LP, ‘The Dark Album’ has been supported by a wide range of international press, radio and leading DJs.
‘My Gift’ has been a highlight of several of Richie Hawtin’s sets whilst Charlotte de Witte called it “beautiful”. Sasha, Kölsch, Jennifer Cardini, Maceo Plex, John Digweed, and Skream alongside many others have also been praising the album.
‘The Dark Album’ remixes feature handpicked artists Ross Harper personally holds in high regard.
To put this in a framework, Harper was recently asked in an interview with The DJ Sessions, for his opinion of Ghost Producers and furthermore what we can expect when in the near future tracks are produced by AI? As a DJ, Harper’s answer was simple, it is his job to filter out tracks that do not have feeling, more specifically, Harper is listening for tracks that have heart and soul, in fact Harper’s monthly radio show has the name, “House & Techno w/ Heart & Soul”.
The artists Harper has invited to remix tracks from ‘The Dark Album’ are producers who have exhibited the anti-thesis of Ghost Producers and AI, they are special individuals who have something that cannot be mimicked, hidden, faked, they have something unique and different that makes them stand out from the chatter.
Harper’s DJ sets are free and boundless, and so this is what fans can expect to hear in the remixes, from rich ambient soundscapes, to driving epic arpeggiated leads, to hard, gritty machine beats, to beautiful textures and softness, all fixed in a diverse cross-range of genres with end results that are almost impossible to tie down and categorise.
In Volume 1 we hear from Cie, Nickon Faith and Roi.
Colonge’s Cie breaks in with a hybrid creation, taking Harper’s bleeps, squeaks and synth choir from ‘Something New’ and weaving them through intelligent syncopated hypnotic techno grooves, the result is an entrancing tapestry that draws the mind deeper and deeper into the patterns, until suddenly, it all ends.
Manchester’s Nickon Faith fearlessly takes on ‘Humanistic Correction’ and brings with him an entire intergalactic orchestra of sound. In Faith’s ‘Drifting’ remix ‘Humanistic Correction’ becomes a multi-layered symphonic masterpiece. The first section is led by a wandering melody while contrastingly the second section gives way to a structured arppegio. Harper challenged Faith to develop the second section in a new version, and hence the ‘Epic’ remix came to being, with the ‘Epic Edit’ being a consolidation of the beauty and intensity.
Heralding from Galicia’s coast, Fanzine’s Roi strikes out first with his ‘Retro Future’ breaks remix of ‘The Power of Three’, feel the raw power of Roi’s proximity to wild Atlantic ocean in his driving electro baseline that compliments perfectly against the soft, dreamy synths from Harper’s original. Not content Harper nudged Roi again, this time for a 4/4 remix, so, with a hint of something like an early disco classic but adorned with drones and squelchy melodic lines that would be more at home in Jabba The Hutt’s lair then Paradise Garage, the ‘Cosmic Disco’ remix came to be.
