Oval's Markus Popp was busy with collaborations between '95 and '99. His remixes for the likes of Tortoise, Pizzicato 5 and Ryuichi Sakamoto were consistently intriguing-- his musical voice was unique and his process was radically different from what was used to generate the source material. My favorite from this era remains his remix of Takako Minekawa's "International Velvet," which wound up on her collection, Ximer. Throwing the high, chirpy voice of Minekawa into sharp relief, Popp buried the instrumentation under an avalanche of processing, saturating the tapes with data to such a degree that they seemed to transform into some sort of post-organic being. Popp's mixes then were so distinctive because they were atom-smashing collisions of opposing forces-- digital vs. analog, played vs. processed-- that wound up generating an original compound.

Last year, Kid606 made an entry into the ambient glitch world of Mille Plateaux with P.S. I Love You. With that album, the Kid proved to the world that he had processing and compositional skills to rank him amongst the heavy hitters of the genre. Either that, or he proved that glitch music was easy to make. In any case, it was a varied and rewarding collection, that showed him touching on dub ("Together"), reflective drone music ("Sometimes"), and click&cut; techno ("Whereweleftoff") with success.

So now we have the obligatory remix effort, P.S. You Love Me, which features five new Kid606 tracks and was compiled in part from two previously released EPs. It's a solid collection, but ultimately suffers a bit because the remixers come from a similar aesthetic background and don't seem to be challenging themselves or the original track. Compare P.S. You Love Me to Microstoria's Reprovisors and you can see the opportunity lost. The latter was wildly variable, with a fascinating vocal-meets-laptop contribution from Stereolab, a full-band take from Ui, some traditional instrumental fuckery from Jim O'Rourke, and Markus Popp's crowning achievement (his Microstoria megamix "Runtime Engine"). P.S. You Love Me, while good, is simply glitch music remixed by glitch artists.

Failure to reach for the stars is not a crime, though, so it would be best to assess P.S. You Love Me on its own merits. Somewhat predictably, I'm going to have to say that my favorite cut is Jan Jelinek's "Kubuki Rock Mix" of "Sometimes," contributed under his Farben alias. The German intellectual with an ear for the sublime didn't waste an opportunity to play with the most outwardly beautiful track on P.S. I Love You. The original drone is processed heavily, sometimes serving as a background tone as Jelinek fills the near field with his trademark clicks and pitch shifts, other times elbowing its way to the fore to display its shimmering warmth.

Matmos also contribute a winner-- a funky technofied take on "Twirl" that finds them incorporating the sounds of an interview they gave while simultaneously working on the remix. Despite how tossed-off that sounds, they do a nice job accelerating the rhythmic punch of the original's guitar samples and transforming the tune into something danceable.

Tracks by Atom, Twerk and Rechenzentrum are all nice minimal techno (Atom's verges on excellent), but not the sort of thing I return to often. The best of the rest are the five new tracks. "Act Your Age" is one of the more melodic tracks Kid606 has released in this vein, with patient deployment of a mysterious music box tune. "Horseback" dabbles in the drones of "Sometimes" with a more sinister edge, while "P.S. I Dub Ya/Posterboys of the Apocalypse" is a punishing house track that combines elements of several pieces. P.S. You Love Me is a worthwhile companion to the Kid's earlier record, but the tracks never quite click (so to speak) in that way that gets you staring at the disc player in wonder. The talent involved here is evident, but as an album, P.S. You Love Me lacks tension.

-Mark Richard-San, October 24th, 2001