With Me Or Against Me

With Me Or Against Me

Ramirez feat. TC [Toolroom]

10 May, 2008 | 6.39AM

• Section: Music Reviews Topics: Beatport Blog
• Written by: The Last Real DJ Alive

Sub Focus was the first to do it with ‘Time Warp’ and TC is the next to pioneer the sound of electro house within drum & bass.

But this review isn’t of the 4/4-patterned D&B version of ‘With Me Or Against Me’ that you can hear on TC’s Myspace page—rather, it’s of the coming together of that man with electro house king Ramirez in one 2008’s most glorious dance music moments.

‘With Me Or Against Me’ is a juxtaposition of plodding, ambient melodies and tough, compressed beats.

The trademark, blinking arpegs are in here, neatly nestled subliminally in the background, backed up by twinkly triangle percussion and synths that positively saturate the mix with their wide and fat textures.

TC’s vocal – heavily Autotuned – is good, hissing the name of the song incessantly, and throwing in a few inspired phrases.

Ramirez makes good use of the stereo field by panning elements everywhere, which makes for an aurally stimulating, exciting composition.

There are bags of remixes on this release too.

Aside from the instrumental version of the title track and a duo of techno excursions by Tocadisco, you get a tech house mix by Infinitize, an electro house mix by Kristoph, and an original radio (plus instrumental) by Ramirez.

Kristoph’s effort is superlative.

At first you might mistake it as average, but by the end of the record, expect to be hooked.

Kristoph’s mix builds hypnotically, revealing many dynamic twists and turns, and harbours some deliciously-processed percussion and pumping, sidechained pads.

We guess that you’re wondering what the radio edit is like?

Obviously it’s a more compact version of the club mix, but let’s just say that Ramirez and TC have got it right here.

The vocals are much more prominent, and whilst it’s quite obvious that TC is no natural singer, it’s nice to see Ramirez allowing him to do his thing on the breakaway without plastering the result with too much Autotune.

The UK Top 40 could be a likely destination for ‘With Me Or Against Me’

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