- These days the Wighnomy Brothers (How do you pronounce that?) are known more as DJs playing long, drunk after-hours sessions than they are as producers. Peppering their rambunctious minimal sets with such incongruous sounds as opera – and making it work – the duo's own releases possess a similar prankster-ish spirit, or at least they try to. They had a minor hit with the relatively straightforward 'Wombat' for Kompakt but they're more prolific as remixers, using other peoples' work as an excuse to throw in the digital kitchen sink. Known individually as Robag Wruhme and Monkey Maffia, it's Robag who dominates their output, his (and their) sound veering from pointillist IDM to equally scattershot techno, exemplified by 2004's 'Wuzzelbud KK'.
It's a good thing they like booze, as without it these frenzied tracks could skitter well off the scale. Already 'Remixx Potpourri II' is a dizzying collection, with even the chilled-out moments rammed with fizz and buzz, like having a video arcade lodged in your brain. The originals range from Depeche Mode to Nitzer Ebb, but once given the Wighnomy treatment they all emerge uniformly shredded, trebly shards and glitter sprinkled liberally over everything. Sometimes this works: Royskopp's 'Beautiful Day Without You' keeps the glossy Norwegian surge largely intact, adding subtle laptop tinkerings and coming across like a Mille Plateaux mix of the Pet Shop Boys. Their 'Okkasion Re(h)and Remix' of Gustav's 'We Shall Overcome' turns the Austrian chanteuse's Bjork-ian tones into deep echoing caverns, shuffling along to a cocktail rhythm of clattering castanets and crickets. Underworld's 'Play Pig' retains more low-end than is usually preserved, a dub pulse laid over gruffly uttered beat poetry, the trademark clamour colliding and reverberating into a thunderous techno chug. Depeche Mode's 'Lilian', proceeds almost patiently, with David Gahan's voice chopped and multiplied beside plangent guitar lines sliced into Klimek-like slivers.
Overall however it's exhausting, the Wighnomy's more eager to dazzle with a relentless barrage of digital bluster than create funk. Both Jean-Paul Bondy and Matthias Tanzmann have their works vacuumed dry, all depth replaced by stuttering nerves and surface clatter. Future Sound of London's 'Lifeforms' gets a limp re-edit dripping in Boards of Canada twee, Ellen Alien and Apparat's 'Way Out' is so frantic it could appear on Planet Mu, and even the ambient closer, Paul Kalkbrenner's 'Steinbeisser', has its beautifully unrolled chords interrupted with abrupt bursts of noise. It's a mixed bag, in both senses.
Tracklist1 The Future Sound Of London – Lifeforms (Wighnomy Brothers Und Robag Wruhme's Simetikon 002-06 Re-Edit)
2 Röyksopp - Beautiful Day Without You (Wighnomy's Und Robag's Spekkfakkel Remix)
3 Jean-Paul Bondy - Something Is Not Right (Robag Wruhme's Fukkeldibobb Remake)
4 Depeche Mode - Lilian (Robag Wruhme's Slomoschen Kikker)
5 Matthias Tanzmann – Bulldozer (Robag's Herbstmoosmutzel Remix)
6 Ellen Allien & Apparat - Way Out (Robag Wruhme Vati Mafonkk Remikks)
7 Underworld - Play Pig (Wighnomy & Robag Wruhme Moosmutzel With Melody Remix)
8 Gustav - We Shall Overcome (Wighnomy's Okkasion Re(h)and)
9 Nitzer Ebb - I Thought (Robag's Schikkuli Remikks)
10 Paul Kalkbrenner - Steinbeisser (Wighnomy Brothers Remix)
11 Robag Wruhme – Bakkenvesper