Tech... No, Candy.

Rabbit-Eyed’s third and latest mix opens with the sound of warm honey spreading over the milky thighs of a sacrificial virgin. By the end of it, she’s won her life and wrecked her chastity.

The 1hr20minute mix is Rabbit Eyed’s most complex and accomplished to date. Kicking off with sweet, mellow tech-house, the first 15 minutes of the mix have to be taken with as open and easy a mind as can be provided. The tracks are superb, quality selections, but in the context of a techno mix seem to sway and meander without enough purpose. Listening to the mix the second or third time around, the sassy, girly, near-disco beginnings set the scene perfectly for an omniscient mechanical techno slice. As first impressions go, though, this one doesn’t really cut it. At Dubfire’s JHB show (*THIS IS AN OBLIQUE COMPARISON*), in his endless test tube font, the words "Trust Me" flowed over and over from the screen through our black (rabbit?) eyes . The problem with Rabbit Eyed’s opening, here, is that we don’t trust it yet. It’s a bit like a stranger offering you a slightly warm Sparkle. It might be nice, but it might be laced with rohypnol. Having listening to the mix now almost constantly since Friday, I’m still not sure which it was… but I am sure I’m not the first girl to say maybe to a ruphie.
And thank fuck (on most, but especially this occasion) for that. At 26 minutes, with wide, flat bass sliding into the space between my skirt and hip – trust was as obvious as our grinding jaws. The weirdo with the sweetie isn’t a deviant; he is god and your mother and the best bath of your life.

Around this point in the mix (first time around) I made my boyfriend put on his shiny Reeboks and take me for a walk. Now that the trust has been established, it is pushed and stretched to its absolute limits – and the pushing and the stretching can’t possibly be absorbed by the stationary body. I walked; in all other instances, the instruction burning into the base of your spine is: dance. You must move on this drum and this bass, this quickly and this slowly. And that, above and beyond and certainly beneath all else, is why the mix is a fucking killer mix. Whatsoever emotions and sensations Rabbit Eyed slams and subjugates, every single one belongs to a dance floor. There’s a lot to say about subtlety (a lot to say about Rabbit Eyed’s subtlety, which this mix exemplifies), but the point, the thrust and the crux is that this is dance music. And you’d better dance to it.

The techno starts bass-driven and deceptively simple with Adam Shaw’s Falling Down. Deceptive, I say, because who can’t dance on that beat? It’s the smile and the clean hair that tell you its ok to put the Sparkle in your mouth. The first taste of the something ugly comes in just a few minutes later with a Gennaro Mastrantonio Remix of Andrews & Fatasses, and the words start failing from there.

Primarily, there’s a delicacy in the mixing that shows a lot more respect than most middle class bitches are used to. With dirty beats (god help my ghetto mouth) especially, the tendency to slaan usually wins. Here, however, shifts and ebbs and perhaps something like the first bite into a strawberry Bubbaloo are more appropriate ideas. Perhaps it’s that these beats aren’t really all that dirty – they just make you feel that way.

It’s in that skirt-fiddling bass of the 26th minute that something icy in your womb twigs on. Somebody knows. Paranoia, this integral component of techno, begins its slimy ascent and doesn’t take much longer to assure you It Is More Real Than you Will Ever Be. Everything you are afraid of is piqued and poised to ruin your life. By the first hissy smoke machine around minute 40 of the mix, and the full, boxy kick that ensues, the fear is carving tiny bullet holes through our poor girl’s purity. And every spike is lovelier than the last.

So now that you know you have nothing to hide, and now that you know you were right to be ashamed – the funkiest fucking tweeting tooting swishing slaps the clammy hand from the dancing hip and blows up the back of the little girl’s skirt like a dirty uncle role play game with unclear boundaries. Travelling, infinitesimal noises of elastic joy cruise over the wet tar bass lines, lifting and dropping like hyper-charged Jelly Tots. Which, of course, is what I meant by subtlety and what I mean by god and your mother.

Sure, around 53 minutes there’s a beeping tringing itching that reminds you of what you didn’t tell the doctor about that mark, but by the time the first hour’s up we’re rolling in wank-synth (although it was closely preceded by death-synth) like its Nineteen Eighty-Lame all over again.

Guilt and pride are the same sin cosseted in Rabbit Eyed’s merciless techno. Mostly, you will be punished. Occasionally, you will be rewarded. And, consistently, there is no alternative.

Except that, everything I’ve just tried to say is washed away in the very end. After all that hymen-ripping, heart-racing, thigh-sweating emotional filth… I have never been cleaner than the last few minutes and their dulcet, nostalgic softness have left me.

I don’t want to ruin the surprise; I won’t tell you what the Sparkle was really made of. Download the damn thing and taste gut-twisting sugar yourself.

Rabbit Eyed - March Promo Mix 2009 (Mediafire)

Tracklisting:

Who’s Afraid of Detroit – Claude VonStroke
Magic (Cates&dpl Make Magic Bootleg) – Ladyhawke/Cates&dpl
Falling Down (Original Club Mix) – Adam Shaw
El (Gennaro Mastrantonio Remix) - Andrews & Fatasses
Redirected (Original) - Leeks
In Pursuit of Sound – Mark Holmes & Ticker
Smile When You Kill Me (Original Mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae
Uno (Koen Groeneveld Backtrack Remix) Alex Young
The Prophet – Style of Eye
Out Of The Ordinary (Original Mix) – Lutzenkirchen
Clocks – H2
Beating Frequency (Original Mix) – Highcat
Sputnik – Zoo Brazil
Evouh – Pryda
Need To Feel Loved (Adam K & Soha Vocal Mix) - Reflekt