Artist: MV Feat Hanna
Title: Mr Roboto
Label: Little Mountain Recordings
By: Jason Calvert | 19 January 2006
Tracklist:

• A: Original Mix
• B: Stef Vrolijk Mix

MV Feat Hanna "Mr Roboto"

Canadian producer Martin Villenuve has worked on some amazing tracks in the past. Whether it be through his alias Envy, or as MV, they were usually names that brought along a sign of quality. Be it tracks like "Faith" or "Falling" which went deep with atmosphere, to his emotional remixes of tracks such as "Do What You Want", "Crayons" and "Back To You". But up until now I have been writing in past tense. This is now, and I'm not quite sure what has gone askew here. Okay, so the track isn't what one might expect from the MV name, but oddly enough Stef Vrolijk finds himself out of line here too, which is quite spooky! Let's take a closer look...

From the beginning of the Original Mix, we know it is going to be a housy affair, with the percussion possessing more of a bounce than a drive. The bassline didn't do a lot for me when that kicked in, but the track still had potential. What ultimately shatters the mood is a shocking vocal sounding like it was pulled straight out of the eighties. It just simply does not fit in any way, and each time it came in I couldn't help but cringe. The underlying track sticks to a linear path throughout, with not too much apart from percussion and bassline, and a few minor effects. There was potential here, but it got lost along the way. Less vocal and some more texture is what this track needs!

Stef Vrolijk would be most well known for his collaborations with 16 Bit Lolitas on various tracks and remixes. When his remix of "Mr Roboto" started, it immediately sounded better, pushing some tight percussion and the odd scratch effect making me very interested. I really needed something refreshing after my outing with the flipside. The original bassline has been slightly chopped up and re-sampled. But what I don't understand is why Vrolijk had to use the vocal in his mix! Not only has he used it, but he's taken the "Mr Roboto" line, and sampled and repeated it over and over on the build up, in a similar fashion to what Underground Movement did with "Fragile", interestingly enough also on the same label! That build up made me cringe more than i did on the original, and really tainted any possible enjoyment I could have gained from the rest of the mix. Again, where the mix starts off with potential, this potential goes nowhere, and is killed by the odd choice of vocal.

Some people have told me that this track has its place. I'm just not too sure exactly where that place is. I've not only been surprised by MV here, but also Stef Vrolijk. I'm sure we'd all be familiar with MV's past works, and know that he is capable of much more than this. Same goes for Vrolijk really, and I can't really find an explanation as to why two otherwise strong producers would let us down on the same release. Exercise caution before approaching this one.