"Until the arrival of this record, the subterranean links between hip-hop and avent-garde techno were a well-kept secret. Given that many of electronic music's most daring practitioners grew up listening to hip-hop... this project is not the misalliance it might at first appear to be. Tried By 12 makes those links explicit and reveals the complicity of the two genres, which should never have been separated at all. This record's humble beginnings lie in the East Flatbush Project's original single "Tried By 12," a sparse, arid indie hip-hop single produced by Spencer Bellamy and released in 1997 to critical acclaim and widespread underground success. The folks at Chocolate Industries in Miami decided to ask their colleagues to remix the track in any way they saw fit..." Cont'd below...
"What distinguishes this effort from the plethora of remix work is that on first hearing, some of the reinterpretations bear absolutely no resemblance whatever to the original, but that impression is deceptive because they all retain the parched groove and moody, contemplative textures of the original version. Only Herbaliser's mixes are hip-hop in the traditional sense... This is where experimental electronics and hip-hop meet in a way that will change the received wisdom about each form." - CMJ, December 1998. The full review - based more in electronic music - is below.
