Artist: Chris Lake
Title: Santiago De Cuba
Label: Lost Language
By: Simon Jones | 3 July 2002
Tracklist:

• A: Original Mix
• B: Jurgen Dreissen Mix

Chris Lake "Santiago De Cuba"

Chris Lake. A boy with a lot to be happy about. One of those rare talents who has the ability to pull that extra something out of the bag and deliver a quality production and in some cases surprise the stalwarts of the scene. Be it from his unknown days behind the cheeky cover versions 'Elements Of Der Schiber' or 'Phatter Planet', or his more legitimate remixes of Sia's Drink To Get Drunk, the boy has consistently delivered. More recently he's showcased he can even produce breakbeats with his double helping of remixes of Filta's Abuse for the Minimal label, but the track followers of this man have been waiting for is Santiago De Cuba, and it finally arrives courtesy of Lost Language.

The Original Mix starts off with a deep brooding groove before melodic stabs drop over the bassline like rain bouncing off a tin roof, then as the stabs fade to the background, the main percussion comes into its own and the stabs are brought back to the foreground once more to create a stunning structured track that showcases the talents of this young man.

Jurgen Dreissen steps up to the plate on the remix; dissecting the track and reconstructing it in his own inimitable style that has got many people buzzing about this man. He retains the stabs of the original but adds in some techno elements and some tough German synths and dark vocal samples, turning the track into a twisted European influenced masterpiece, that works perfectly alongside the original. Hooj once again got the right man for the remix as they invariably always seem to do.

Where to next for this young man? Well, not wanting to move too far away from his cheeky sampling tendencies, the boy is currently making a stir with some reworks of a classic 80's track. I shall leave the progressive detective work up to you to find out what that is.