News Reviews

Bosphorus Rising – Ozgur Ozkan [Stripped Digital]

by Priya Sen December 18, 2014

Stripped Digital has been quietly putting out some of the best dance music around, and with awe inspiring regularity, moreover for a while now. There’s intangible and euphoric quality ever present in the releases, propagating sounds that well, sound splendid. And ”Bosphorous Rising” original mix by Ozgur Ozkan is a well executed example of high end underground musicality. The most appealing part of it is the cosmic sounding spooky elements in the inner body. A chiming synth line and naughty tinkles interweave with an echoing key and a good amount of acidic bass locks on to a subtle groove.
On to the remixes, Yuriy from Russia’s Where’s My Sitar rework is glacial supernova. His take just churns the track around and the high light of the package for me. A percussively precocious number that show cases an intensity seldom found in remixes nowadays. Classy synthy stabs, an operatic chord stretch out creates drama for your ears, snaking mellifluous flute calls over smokey belching bass, all of it guarantees a line for the floor. Tinkles of furious funk puts the remix through an acidic jungle and Voila! a real bomb is born for the Djs.
Corei & Matias Spataro pres. We’r Us Detuned Remix provides us rolling squiggly fun. This one’s a great cut, no doubt. The fabulous twists and turns, layer upon layer along side strains of the original appear and disappear in stilted Techno fashion. Its bass bulges heavy, jacking over a skulking groove that doesn’t lay out the melodics as thickly as the previous versions. This is a magical, stylized and erratic rework, if there ever was one.
Finishing up the pack, AMAN’s Intro Mix deftly straddles the sounds of the original in to compressed understated finery, the result is remarkably organic. Markedly Progressive, its a lumbering beast of a remix, with interlocking cycles of filtered chords, a moody bass tone, and clattering pulse perfectly suited for dance floors on the cusp of dawn. It reigns itself in to create tension and feels like hours have passed away in just a few minutes.
Fantastic stuff!!