Singles

The Qemists, Mike Patton - Lost Weekend (featuring Mike Patton)

Ash Akhtar 14/10/2008

Rating: 1/5

If you are ever lucky enough to work with Mike Patton, the last thing you should do is put his voice through a vocoder. Unless you're The Qemists, of course, in which case it is one of the first things you do. If you are trying to marry rock and drum n' bass - you don't listen to Pendulum: you listen to Pitchshifter's Microwaved from 10 years ago, and apply that attitude to current production standards.

Anyway, The Qemists' have spanked (dismal) 'ultra-heavy' guitars over electro breaks, that accelerate to 'break-neck' drum n' bass speed before returning to their original pace, resulting in this car crash of glam, electro trash. It is truly worthy of a place on the starting line of Project Gotham 5's soundtrack. If you've played any of the games in this series, you will know precisely what I am alluding to.

What compelled Ninja Tune, one of electronic music's most innovative labels, to allow this to slip through their usually tight quality control? Don't cha got enough money? Did they think that Mike Patton's name would be strong enough to sell this?

The Qemists are capable of some raucous remixing, so why try to emulate Pendulum's sound on Hold your colour? Perhaps The Qemists felt that they should keep in line with In Silico's direction and, in doing so, made this camp slab of awfulness - fully complete with dirty-disco remixes. I sure wish they hadn't.

Release date: 13/11/08