t ten tracks and forty minutes, Clockwise-RMXs EP seems more like an album (or mini-album) but let’s not quibble over minor details. In addition to four extra tracks, the greater portion of the disc features Lidbo’s “Clockwise” and its five remixes, two from Lidbo himself and others from Si Begg, Matthew Dear, and Apparat (a “Clockwise” video is included too). A cute concept drives the recording, specifically the routine-regulated lives of Anne Frost and John Lane. He is a London bank employee with the prototypical nine-to-five lifestyle whereas Anne endures thirteen-hour days working at a London restaurant. While the two recite their daily schedules, Lidbo et al. work up their tracks around them. Although unstated, the juxtaposition of the workers’ routines implies some possible further connection between them, something like a daily lunch-time rendez-vous that’s excluded from their accounts, or possibly an artistic conflation of labour versus privilege. Regardless, the texts ultimately serve as springboards for the artists’ diverse approaches.

The concept is established from the outset with an insistent ticking sound that persists throughout, soon joined by a whomping techno beat. Lidbo weakens the track by adding excessive clutter and doctoring the voices (stretching, looping) where altering them less extensively might have proved more effective; furthermore, the added sounds are overly literal (i.e., pouring sounds to accompany Jane’s tea drinking description). Si Begg adds a grimy fuzz bass and distorting voice filters to his electro-drum’n’bass treatment, but it’s no more effective than the original. Lidbo’s “Punkslut RMX,” a short, raucous pop mix is only slightly better, while his “Jetset RMX,” a cheesy kitsch version, all ‘60s organs, handclaps, and squirting synths, might have been better omitted altogether. Sascha Ring’s “Clockwise Apparat RMX,” on the other hand, is superb as he integrates voice fragments rhythmically into an irresistible electro-funk treatment of ringing hi-hats and squelchy beats. It’s Dear’s version that’s best of all, though, as the Detroit artist revisits Profan territory with some ratchety shuffle in this glorious re-imagining of Lidbo’s original. Spectral glistens fade in as Dear adds voice fragments to the deepening rhythm until the track kicks along in gorgeous tech-house style.

The four added tracks are similarly uneven. The raw punk-techno beats and grinding bass lines on “Microsonic” and “My First Honest Penny” recall T. Raumschmiere’s Radio Blackout style in strong manner, but Lidbo mars the recording with an ugly aural simulation of fighting in “The Fu-clan” and punches out in grotesque manner with “Freeze LAPD,” a hoary amalgam of banal orchestral bombast and rock guitars that settles into a manic disco track of rubbery synths, electronic drum fills, and sweeping strings. Given its uneven quality, let’s in true remix fashion propose another version of the disc. If we keep the “Clockwise” original, remix versions by Si Begg, Dear, and Apparat, plus “Microsonic” and “My First Honest Penny” as bonus tracks, our six-track clocks in at thirty minutes, a much more satisfying half-hour set that’s not weakened by inferior material. As usual, less is more and the dictum definitely applies here.