The White Dwarf: "Cosmic Collisions (Daniel Wanrooy Remix)"

Nothing to do with the lead figurines that repressed men like to play with, the White Dwarf is the alter-ego of Turkish trance producer Ercan Ates, back after his stint on Wobbler’s Mannequins in Lingerie (2008). “Turkish trance?” you say, stroking your chin and plagued by images of O-Zone’s “Dragostea din tei” (plus all the summers it polluted). Well, the difference between this and vowel-heavy kinder pop is that Ates has just been snapped up by Convert, and Convert have just dispatched Daniel Wanrooy to remix the Turk’s latest baby. “Cosmic Collisions” is, as its name implies, interstellar psy-trance by numbers, but the involvement of Dutch brainiac Wanrooy fertilises the techno at its heart, causing all kinds of weird shit to germinate.

More organic than the artist original, Wanrooy’s remix crackles to life like a dub techno vinyl before climbing the psy-trance hill, morphing eventually into that semi-euphoric lifesaver you cling to at two in the morning. No need to swallow a second Red Rhino for this one—the fizzing dub heartbeat unfolds into a house sneeze; the bass amps up like a steam gauge and at the two point five minute mark the generic melody rises, kitesurfing you out across the dancefloor. That’s when it hits you: this isn’t a generic melody at all but the crest of some tight electronic tinkering, tailored to mimic those jewels from the past. Ates and Wanrooy may be taking bass cues from dubstepforum and co but they pile equal attention on their roots, keeping the concept of trance/prog house as safe and reliable as ever. I love how this music composed by Voyager fans exits in its private white hole, repelling time like bothersome wasps as it feasts on its own fruit salad. That mixer-friendly climbdown is getting a little stale these days, though. Why not end the next one with a twenty second foghorn.