Artist: Christian Smith & John Selway
Title: Updraft
Label: Renaissance Recordings
By: Carleton Neil | 6 January 2009
Tracklist:

• A: Smith & Selway 'Maximal' Mix
• B: Original Mix

Christian Smith & John Selway "Updraft"

Not many people could tell you exactly what they were doing ten years ago. For Christian Smith and John Selway, they were just releasing their 'Endeavour' EP, one of the first collaborations of a duo that is still producing today. That's worth noting, as ten years in electronic music may be a lifetime in other genres. The fact that Smith and Selway have been producing music together for a decade is a testament in itself; their simple but stylish hooks and signature extended build-ups have caught enough ears over time to remain a mainstay throughout their career, with their tracks featured on Sasha's 'Global Underground 013: Ibiza' and Digweed's 'Transitions Volume 4'. Renaissance is the latest label to latch onto their sound and that is where you can find 'Updraft'.

Make one thing clear about Smith & Selway's original mix: it is an instrumental monster. From the depths of techno it has spawned, an aural phagocyte that will absorb the main room in your club like an amoeba. Pre-emptive clattering claps and rubbery fills won't hold it at bay; its low rumbling bassline will slither over you, leaving a trail of slime that glistens like the sustained shiny hats in the track. The best parts of the original mix come from the syncopated fills that give the track its swing. Smith and Selway continue to layer them, creating a shifty tension that sloshes back and forth until the breakdown, where the ear-splitting sirens arrive and you won't know if it's the climax of the track lighting the place up or the fire trucks that pulled up outside to come cool it down.

Their own 'Maximal' remix changes gears completely offering up a synth-heavy rework that still maintains the off-beat half-claps and a semblance of the hats from the original but definitely takes the track in a more melodic direction. The remix is not chock full of epic breakdowns but instead the melodics are continuously repeated, full of cascading arpeggiated synths whose chord progressions charge forward, sometimes with a brief Far East flair.

With an original mix that you could play next to Timo Maas' 'Der Schieber' as its newer, shinier brother, 'Updraft' is a big room blaster tempered only by its melodic remix. Throw on some Smith and Selway anytime you want to blow the whole house down. 'Updraft' is out now on Renaissance.