Recent releases from Mute Records left-field electronic offshoot Novamute have been a mixed bag so far. For every interesting artist (e.g. Lawrence) there’s been more than a fair share of product that’s left me firmly non-plussed, the label often unleashing dance tracks that singularly lack a cutting edge or display much in the way of innovation. T. RAUMSCHMIERE (aka Berlin ‘electro punk’ Marco Haas) takes his name from the Burrough’s short story ‘The Dreamcops’ (Die Traumschmiere in German) and also runs a label called Shitkatapult.
You may already see where this is all going and unsurprisingly ‘Sick Like Me’ is unlikely to avert your directional gaze. The original mix, replete with a driving punk beat and Pistols electro-riffs, sounds like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry: you know, the stuff that they were knocking out about ten years or more ago. Disappointingly derivative, the angrily shouted lyrics amount to little more than the personal observation along the lines of “I don’t care what you think about me I’m ready to enjoy myself tonight”: in its own way just a bland “wahey, it’s the weekend” for electro-punks.
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The two remixes keep the shouting but revise the beats. Mr. No’s remix ups the electronic quota with stutters, bleeps and blips augmenting the percussion while Bryan Black’s better effort has an 80s synth/House feel. The additional track ‘All Systems Go’ is a far more interesting proposition: an instrumental, it has a grand swagger about it, like Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’ reinvented for the here and now: so still derivative then but not in a stolidly dull way unlike like this CD’s main event.
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