Viennese production duo, Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister, released their debut, G-Stoned, in 1993, on their label G-Stone Recordings. It was a time of total trip hop saturation where pop acts all over were picking up hip remixes, and K&D were a very cool name to drop. The majority of the pair’s reworks were collected, in 1998, on a compilation called The K&D Sessions. This was recently reissued as a 6 X LP box. Its original 22 tracks bolstered to 28. It demonstrates just how busy they were with commissions – don’t forget these were all done in the short space of 4 years – and perhaps explains why they released so little actual Kruder & Dorfmeister material.

Many of their remixes were huge, and are now considered classics. Depeche Mode got made over with a massive Jah Wobble-like B-line. Madonna’s Nothing Really Matters is an 11 minute suite, that evolves from ethereal and ambient to breakbeat-driven. The Sofa Rockers seemed to be playing everywhere. A ubiquitous bar jam with a catchy, Air / Moon Safari-esque melody, it’s something that’s firmly lodged in my memory, even if everything around it has gone.

K&D’s work was consistently richly, ridiculously detailed, yet completely uncluttered. Subtle, sophisticated and smooth. Noir and nocturnal, lush with layers of fluid Fender Rhodes, hushed horns and shadowy shaken percussion. They turned tunes by drum & bass dons, such as Roni Size and Alex Reece, into stoned, shapeshifting sambas. Delivering deep downtempo decon / reconstructions of dubbed out Latin jazz. Conversely, they transported Japanese scene-sters U.F.O. onto the dancefloor at Goldie’s Metalheadz. Much of the music, in fact, could act as the soundtrack if they ever made a movie about Hoxton’s Blue Note. A melting pot of then new, head-nodding, hypnotic genres. The sort of stuff listed in Ben Wilcox’s eclectic Straight No Chaser magazine charts and reviews.

K&D share sonic similarities with a range of contemporaries, including The Sandals, Red Snapper, Trevor Jackson’s Underdog alias and Haunted Dancehall-era Sabres Of Paradise(1). Perhaps it was something that everyone was smoking. Listening to K&D’s sides, plus all of the above, you can almost see / hear the clouds of ganja. I’m pretty sure, timing wise, these tunes coincided with the introduction of skunk.

To be honest, back then, I was more interested in the raucous racket that the Chemical Bros were making (2). Far noisier, off its nut and not at all nuanced. Both outfits reinterpreted Bomb The Bass’ Bug Powder Dust – a collaboration with L.A rapper Justin Warfield – a self-confessed “B-Boy On Acid” – and a tribute to author William Burroughs, and David Cronenberg’s film adaptation of Burroughs’ book, Naked Lunch. The rhymes packing in countless drug and cult movie references. Twenty-five years later, however, in retrospect, and relative sobriety, K&D’s mellower mix is the perfect fit for the song’s psychedelic syntax. Its booming bass, LSD-laced axe licks, and warm waves of TB-303 complementing the “Interzone tripping”, while conjuring chilled images of lava lamp bubbles and candle flame vapour trails – as opposed to The Chemicals’ “wild boys” pogoing inside burning rings of poppers.

Personally, though, K&D’s shake of Strange Cargo’s Million Town is still my favourite (3). A shot of Sci-Fi jazz, it counters cycling alien organ sounds with slightly sinister keys, while surfing on soft cymbal syncopation. Its beats sorta stall and tumble backwards – a la American Spring’s Sweet Mountain – amidst muted blues-y moans. Typically, on the surface deceptively sparse, but scratch that and really texturally scintillating,  it’s a masterclass in painstaking production. In the past I’ve often got lost in its grooves. The joint staining my fingers yellow and brown.

Kruder & Dorfmeister: The K&D Sessions TM 25th Anniversary Boxset is out now on !K7.

NOTES

1. K&D and Weatherall’s post-Sabres Two Lone Swordsmen both produced very similar remixes of David Holmes’ Shangri-Las homage, Gone.  
2. See also the Chemicals’ remixes of Method Man and The Manic Street Preachers.
3. Back in the day, I bought this on a 12 from FatCat Records, in their Covent Garden basement. I picked up Melaaz’ cover of Dawn Penn’s No No No at the same time.