Scalar
Distant Fires Burning and Autistici return to Scalar not as a fixed object, but as a signal sent outward—refracted, reshaped, and reassembled by a cast of artists operating at the edges of ambient, electronic, and IDM practice. What emerges is less a conventional remix package than a set of transmissions: six alternate states of the same source, each one pulling the track deeper into new zones of motion, pressure, texture, and atmosphere.
Across these versions, Scalar becomes fluid. Kingbastard pushes it into heavier, more physical terrain; Ficture teases out detail and fracture; Slowly On The Way – He Can Jog bends time and creates an abstract listening space; Reverend Basstorius folds the track through a warped 90s memory; Ümlaut Vector sharpens it into futuristic geometry; and Pulse Mandala channels its pulse into hypnotic, unfolding momentum. Together, the remixes trace a wide arc through bass weight, digital grain, melodic drift, and rhythmic dislocation.
At its core, this is electronic music as transformation: bass-driven, exploratory, and alive with tension. These are versions built for deep listening and physical immersion alike—tracks that move through shadow, circuitry, and pressure with a sense of curiosity and intent. The artwork by Jeff Dungfelder completes the release with a visual language that mirrors the music’s sense of abstraction, movement, and controlled intensity.
Tracklisting:
- Scalar (E-xtended Mix)
- Scalar (Kingbastard Remix)
- Scalar (Ficture Remix)
- Scalar (Slowly On The Way - He Can Jog Remix)
- Scalar (Downscaled to the 90ies by Reverend Basstorius)
- Scalar (Ümlaut Vector Remix)
- Scalar (Pulse Mandala Remix)
Distant Fires Burning & Autistici
Distant Fires Burning is Gert’s expression through bass - enhanced and manipulated to create a very unique and personal sound.
Autistici creates audio narratives aimed at exploring the interchange between sound and space. Space in this context also includes the subjective space held within the listener.
Reviews
Monolith CocktailThe experimental electronic label and hardware hub is known for its unconventional approaches to remix projects. Those familiar with this site may recall one such release by the latter of this team up, the Sheffield-based electronic composer Autistici, whoreleased acollaborative chain of such repurposed, resourced explorations through the Familiarity series. In that series fellow peers and label mates went to work on transducing or expanding upon the original material: or sounds and code adjacent to it anyway. Sharing the spotlight this time around with Belgium bass-player and “knob twiddler” Gert De Meester and his Distant Fires Burning alias (a moniker that leans towards the bass guitar), their Scaler track is given free reign and transported via various electronical fields of inquiry and exploration by a clutch of similar artists.
Opening with an “E-xtended Mix”, the foundation is hollowed tubular bounce and fizzle bed of static-charged kinetic techno track. Partly organic in its makeup but a synthesis of padded beats, squiggles, broadcast interferences and a transformed trebly bass guitar track, it reminded me of Kriedler, Orbital and Cabaret Voltaire. Meester does his own homework later on under the Reverend Basstorius alias, keeping (like most of the crew involved on this seven-track remix special) the static charges, the crispiness but adding a cosmic soundscape of Banco de Giai and early Warp label trance.
UK “sound experimenter” Kingbastard (as he known) continues to play with the crackled atoms of the original, but goes for an electrical charge of techno and filtered passes and switchery zips, whilst the Hungarian producer, sound-designer and instrumentalist Ficture (the solo project appellation of Gábor Tokár) deepens the bass, adds a circulating spin of cyber wind and a Land Observations-style set of guitar loops to the vaporized mood – there’s what can only be described as a sort of Indian-trance-jig at the very end.
Erik Schoster, appearing under the active alias of He Can Jog, seems to be heading towards a similar current as the Bureau B label in Germany; some echoes of Harmonious Thelonious amongst the zippy and farty bass lines, the wizzes and generally slowed down playfulness. Appearing on the site a few times before, northern Connecticut countryside dweller Jeff Düngfelder (who uses the Ümlaut guise) brings the mystique, plus a spring woody ruler-like repeated sound and wispy cosmic dust to the kinetic original.
The final remix is by the rather anonymous Pulse Mandala, who settles the source material into a signature relaxation (though pining and almost electronically bluesy) of space-bound reflection, breaths and drifted neo-classical piano spells.
Combined, this is an interesting, entrancing and kinetic bouncing metallic EP or mini-album or extended 12” release of both subtle and cerebral techno music and genre offshoots; the quality is obvious and the ideas not just intelligent but visceral too.
Original > HERE