Additional Productions [Audio CD] Funkstorung

The obvious comparison is with Autechre: two charismaphobic European guys who wrench tense, jittery rhythm tracks out of a small armamentarium of computers. But this is Autechre with Top 40 ambitions--or at least what passes for Top 40 ambitions in these circles. On Additional Productions Michael Fakesch (the German one) and Chris De Luca (the Italian one) peer out of their underground cellar to remix the big-league likes of Wu-Tang Clan and spar with Miami's world-champ hip-hop turntablist DJ Craze. The result isn't club music, but it is club-to-the-head music. Björk is something of an expert at ferreting out producers who can match her parched soprano with equally arid timbres, and Funkstorung's stop-start setting of "All Is Full of Love" is no exception: it is a track as severe as the tundra of her native Iceland. Likewise, the duo's revision of Wu-Tang's "Reunited" turns the original's mid-tempo MC showcase into something as jumpy and paranoid as RZA's most claustrophobic productions. Call it "skip-hop." --Jeff Salamon