Mixing Me

Miss Kittin's 2004 LP, I Com, was packed with engrossing productions and heady ideas, but its boldness also limited its audience. Astralwerks takes care of that with Mixing Me, a concise and entertaining EP featuring remixes of I Com content. Most of this material used to only be available on vinyl. Here Kittin continuously mixes it for a concise, 35-minute set that's unshakably beat-driven and uniformly cool. BPitch roustabouts Modeselektor mix "Professional Distortion" into electro that throbs and shudders addictively. By contrast, the version of "Distortion" that opens Mixing Me (featuring aid from Zdar) is moody and subtly melodic. There are two versions of "Happy Valentine." The first features rapidly pinging micro-techno from Kompakt's Michael Mayer; the other, a grittier take sporting the handiwork of LFO (aka Mark Bell). Neither Mayer nor Bell — not to mention MDSLKTR — have reputations for hyper-accessibility, but their work with Kittin on Mixing Me is sharp without breaking the skin. Kittin blends her soft vocal underneath the wayward electronic bleating at the end of LFO's "Valentine," softening the aggression, and "Requiem for a Hit [Ge + GM Remix]" is irresistibly sinister. Mixing Me is a fantastic Miss Kittin entry point. She splices parts of later tracks into the earlier ones for more adventure, and even includes two I Com originals, the solar storm gem (and vaguely Meat Beat Manifesto-sounding) "Soundtrack of Now" and the chilly "Allergic."