Juno Reactor - Hotaka

A great single from Juno Reactor. Basically a spin-off from their Shango album, as its style mostly resembles that album then any other one. The song mixes tribal beats, a ethnic chant even guitar to form a solid trance song.

Odds are you'll enjoy the 12" dance version the best (actually its the REAL full version of the song). The edit, and remixes are nice, but its worth it simply for the full version of Hotaka.

I'll skip the radio edit since very few of us have any real interest in them. The 12" Dance Version is obviously the version of Hotaka that we will be listening too. This track features a lot of traditional Japanese taiko drumming as well as again featuring former Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens' guitar work. He previously appeared on Shango's "Pistolero" and like that track, I had some misgivings about the guitar work and general vibe of Hotaka on first listen. However, again like Pistolero, repeated listenings have warmed me to this track considerably. This is something that seems to happen with to me on just about every single Juno Reactor release however. After a luke-warm response to the first listen, the music begins to reveal new layers and its true value becomes apparent. I personally find releases like this to have much more staying power with me, where as releases I go "holy crap this is sweet" to on the first listen seem to wear off and bore me quickly.

Juno Reactor's willingness to use non-traditional psy remixers has always been something good about their singles, although often the results are mixed. The Thomas P Heckman jumps in with a very different, less ethnic, more techno-ish vibe with a touch of maybe some good house. There are lots of distortion and various clips, bleeps and sounds. Its a good remix completely unlike the original with just enough touchs of the original to let you know the roots, while going someplace new entirely.

The Der Dritte remix starts off nice and mellow and is generally a very nice mix, however I feel they should have completely dropped the crunchy heavy guitars. They completely ruin the nice mood they had created and the remix would have been excellent without them in my opinion.

All in all this is another solid Juno Reactor E.P.