Artist: Oko Tek
Title: Bento
Label: Choo Choo Records
By: Simon Jones | 3 September 2002
Tracklist:

• A: Original Mix
• B: Mara NY Taxi Cab Mix

Oko Tek "Bento"

Holmes Ives is quite a prolific producer, producing under many guises such as HDI, Memnon and Oko Tek. With releases on Bedrock, USR, Music Now and Yoshitoshi, his sucess rate has been quite stunning and here he offers up something new under his Oko Tek guise, the curiously titled Bento.

The Original Mix stakes it's claim for supremcy by taking a tough beat influenced bassline, and weaving in some eerie vocals and twisted funky percussion over the top of things. As the track guides its way towards the break, sublime tribal drum arrangements drop into place and a sinister horn warns us of the impending return of the massive bassline, even more fierce than before. The only complaint I will say is that the ethnic sound has been done to death, but this manages to still show an innovative twist on those ideas.

Mara's NY Taxi Cab Mix on the flip is more of a funky monkey, as they take apart the original mix and highlight the tribal drum patterns that lay deep within the track, adding in some layered synth arrangements and some punishing horn stabs. Darker and Moodier, this is the kind of stuff we have come to expect from Mara, and you'll soon realise where the NY Taxi Cab name came from.

With the 30th release looming ever closer, the Choo Choo stable continues to take artists under their wing and nuture them onto great things. It will be interesting to see what else Oko Tek will offer up in the future.