Customer Reviews

Insoc Recombinant

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am a huge fan of Info Society's earlier work. I especially liked Hack and Peace & Love Inc. This CD features poorly remixed versions of their better songs. Most of the remixes are so poorly done that they aren't even danceable. The only positive to this CD is the 2nd CD that comes with it. It contains .AVI formatted full videos of Info Society's songs What's On Your Mind, Waling Away, Repetition, Think, and Peace & Love, Inc. If these are of interest to you, go ahead and get the CD. I wasted my money hoping for good remixes. None were found on this CD. Stay away from it. Info Society needs to reunite the team that made it what it was and get back the pop/dance beats and catchy tunes.

There's only two good tracks on "InSoc: Recombinant", the Rosetta Stone mix of Closing In and the Astralasia mix of Empty, but those two tracks by themselves are really good. If you didn't like Don't Be Afraid, you probably won't like any of this CD (so get DBA first if you haven't already). The rest of this is just bad mixes using "Don't Be Afraid" and Kurt's sub-par re-recordings of early InSoc. The distressed vocals he's done for his later incarnation of InSoc works well for the material on "Don't Be Afraid"... but the vocals on this CD for the popular classic InSoc material simply sounds wrong.

Being a huge fan of InSoc, I just had to have this album. Of course, as other reviewers have pointed out, some of the remixes are excellent (I don't agree with the person who said that there are too much remixes of What's on your mind; personnally, I love every version of that song I can get my hands on) while others are just OK. Except for the Peace and love inc. remix, which is plain excruciating due to the horrible alteration of Kurt's voice. And they could have thought of more interesting songs to remix. Overall, it surely isn't the best album InSoc has put out, but I think die-hard fans will want to have it in their collection. Besides, the sole fact that 5 videos are available on it makes this CD well worth its price.

Ok, being the big huge InSoc fan I am I felt inclined to write a review for the new remix album I picked up the disc finally last night & I love it!!!!!!!! The only downfall is the # of times What's on your mind(pe) is remixed...I am disapointed someone didnt remix "How Long" or various others..In reality how many remixes of Pure Energy does one really need? The good point is Kurt's voice isn't replaced..so one is not subject to bad vocal stylings of certain bands...except artly on one Did I mention the comp comes with 2 discs? One disc contains 5 videos all for 13 bucks... Kurt also recorded some new vocals for some of the songs... For the most part, the songs that are great are really good and its great to get the disc for those songs.... I give it an 8 out of 10(being highest)

1. What's on your mind(pure energy)-CKB remix techno in a good way...its pretty cool remix

2. Closing In-Rosetta Stone mix i love this remix, Rosetta Stone did a great/fantastic job at remixing this song, very club freindly, very dancey...yummy.

3. Peace & Love INC-Biokraft mix great song to begin with, this remix is all right..the vocal distortion got on my nerves after a little bit....its not the best remix i've ever heard , gets kinda boring after a minute

4. Think-Spahn Ranch mix it could be a ton better...the vocals are too slow for the music, and the little bubble sounds are kinda lame...not a very good remix

5. Whats on your mind(pure energy)-Girl Eats Boy mix kinda slow, could have been made faster, but if youre a dj...i can see this getting pitchshifted to a faster tempo...its pretty good dispite the slowness 6. Walking Away-Leatherstrip Mix Leatherstrip remixes are always sooooooooo darn great...this one is no exception besides the Rosetta Stone remix, this one is one of my faves....very industrial sounding very dance floor friendly 7. Going going gone-Razed in black mix Razed in Black are sometimes hit or miss, this mix utilizes some industrial sounding guitar ala kmfdm-ish, but it fits great with the song and they actually did a great job handling the goods...another winner to the list of faves

8. What's on your mind(pure energy)-remixed by Judson Leach & The Exhibition this one grows on you, it works quite well...and makes up for the sorta lame girl eats boy remix...this one kicks ass...

9. Empty-Astralasia Mix techno in a bad way. this remix totally slaughters the song...

10. Ending World-Electric Hellfire Club opens with some little guitar riff that reminds me of the Prince song "When doves Cry" and well its EHC...next.....(psssst...it sucks), oh the singer of EHC adds some vocals to the song and they are toooooooo spooky for InSoc, they should have stopped while they were ahead. 11. On The Outside-THC mix This one focuses on Kurts vocals more and the music takes a background approach, and darn it Kurt sounds sexy....its a great remix of the song.... a stamp of approval 12. Whats on your mind(pure energy)-remixed by David J of Love & Rockets it kinda just bites. techno, along the lines of the new love & rockets stuff, but more techno(this would be techno in a bad way)

what a shame. kurt is capable of giving fans so much more to listen to, i wish he would come out with new music. i enjoyed all the other info society cds, however this one was a waste of time.

TFSKMS@aol.com says it is a complete waste yet gives it 5 stars???? Oh yeah, "aol.com" forgot.

If you go from listening to the early stuff then to this album you won't get it. Being a fan of the "sound" they are trying to get here I enjoyed well over half this album. To me, InSoc is about that late 80's tech-funk-synth, something I think they did fairly well. If Kurt ever releases another album maybe he should try that route again. That is if he is even still alive, InSoc.org has been down for how long now??

Information Society's original albums are excellent, there's no doubt about that. However, does the casual listener want to go through a disc full of remixes?

In this case, no. This collection focuses on letting third-rate remixers run amok and ravage InSoc standards. As a result, we get trite 1990s techno beats that thump around, and only occasionally do Kurt's vocals waft into the mix. Oh, and on the band's earlier tracks, those vocals have been re-recorded! Not particularly satisfying for fans.

A better idea for a remix collection would have involved putting 12" mixes and original club mixes into a single convenient package. Alas, due to licensing concerns, this is the remix disc we ended up with. Its not at all satisfying when compared to the original album versions, since its loaded with repetitive music. And c'mon... do you really need three extremely uninspired versions of "What's On Your Mind"!

Overall, this is a poorly executed project that will appeal to 90s techno-heads, not InSoc fans. Even the bonus CD with the band's music videos won't convince me that this set is worth it.

half these remixes aren't too impressive, half are alright. The Think remix, however, is very poorly done, with many times the vocals not matching the music in feel at all.

What's the purpose of CLEOPATRA's idea of remixing album after album. ENOUGH! This one InSoc Recombinant by Information Society is a waste!!! Well, there was one or two songs that I liked.