Sven Väth - An Accident In Paradise (Remixes)

Not only was Sven Väth at the top of his game when he recorded the title track for his debut ‘solo’ album (Ralf Hildenbeutel was practically ever present whenever Sven Väth was in a recording studio back then), but each of the remixers on this release produced some of their finest work to date.

The original mix is as per the album version. It’s an urgent and dramatic in your face ballet influenced dark had trancer with a mischievous hard acid line that sounds like a space monsters stomach suffering from a very bad dose of cosmic indigestion. The beats thump away with fist pumping percussion and twists and turns. The production is topped of with dark breathy occasional vocals and intense symphonic stabs. This track demands your attention and won’t let go of you until you’ve been rendered a shivering emotional wreck in the corner of a very dark and uncomfortable room.

The Lenny Dee & John Selway remix actually ups the ante on the original, by taking a sparser, more film score emotive and even harder approach. After the lush opening string arrangement, no nonsense beats thrash down with occasional stuttering. Cleverly they keep the best bits from the original (practically all of it!), but somehow or another manage to make it more fist clenching. This sublime version flits effortlessly between hard as nails and soft and floaty – a rare feat indeed.

As you’d expect, the Spicelab remix sits firmly in the ‘liquid monster trance’ fold. Again, this remix doesn’t stray too far from the original, but gives it a more futuristic and spacey feel. You’ll recognise a lot of the usual Oliver Lieb production techniques and samples, but he adds a slippery almost out of control set of synths to the proceedings and even introduced some of his own eastern inspired melodic chords. This has a wonderful clean and almost idyllic sheen to it, and is indeed the smoothest of all the versions.

The William Orbit and Spooky remix starts rather inauspiciously, remaining true to the intricate minimalist sound that Spooky were pioneering at the time. It takes a more thoughtful and looped tribal approach but cleverly retains the baseline from the original as it builds layers of sounds. Compared to the other mixes, this is the most progressive in terms of structure and the classiest in terms of execution, particularly the drawn out new age violin strings in the second half. This won’t ignite dancefloors quite like the other versions, but builds momentum superbly, and makes for compelling home listening.

Rarely has there ever been a 12” packed with such a fine set of remixes as this.