iO - Claire / Libre

This was quite a weird release for Mo'Wax but it was more out of character in it's original release on Cheap. 'Claire' & 'Libre' was lifted from the album ADSR which contained mostly straightforward techno but what we have here is two samplebased groovers.

'Claire' is a techy house excursion which rides it's sample for most of it's worth and adds some acidy twitterings and a chunky bassline. Big ups to KDJ/Moodymann for the introduction via his infamous 1995 novamix. Mark Broom strips of the main sample and slow the track down to 110 and keep it grooving with a lighter house beat. The track works but is nowhere interesting as the original.

'Libre' is an atmospheric jazzy techer which like 'Claire' rides the sample most of the track, here it stops three quarters in too give the acidline some shine but most of the meat is the smoky jazz ambience. Stasis slows the sample down and adds a substantial beat and does a version leaning to the Mo'Wax sound. It does this really well and it's ideas are well executed and track delivers well. Andrea Parker goes for a longer grungy downtempo retake which tries to do pull the track into a multitude of ideas but ultimately none are actually interesting to give any attention too and the track is longer than it's own good.