I’ll admit, I’ve been sitting on Dextro‘s Zero Circle 12″ for awhile.  I seemed to be following a pattern of pulling it out and listening to it in full during moments that either were, or became, intrinsically connected to the experience of listening to this record.

I am extremely grateful to Ewan and 16k for sending me one of the limited vinyl editions, as it sounds amazing.  A1′s “Ring Cycle”has a sense of noir menace to it, with ringing guitar notes and muffled vocals on the outro that sound tailor-made for some pre-EITS postrock band to Stuart into oblivion.  Don’t dismiss A2′s live mix, as it’s a mutated cousin that oozes with life.  I hate to say it but I couldn’t escape hoping for a Laid-but-not-”Laid” Tim Booth vocal peice swooning about – that’s not to say this song is missing anything, moreso it would be considered perfect pop in a perfect world.

A3′s  “Touched by your love 94″ remix of “Ring Cycle” is the first Discogs credit for Socco Chico, but their Myspace has quite a few things to listen to – I liked “Poplar” quite a bit and grabbed it from their Soundcloud page.  That being said, while this particular version of the Dextro track isn’t really my thing, I will give them credit that they didn’t just throw everything into the mix they possibly could, which, given the arrangement, is saying something.

The Village Orchestra’s mix of “Ring Cycle” starts off side B, and immediately makes the whole thing tougher and temporally darker.  Again, TVO manages to make music that is for dancefloors, real or imaginary, that can handle the full mind/body/soul workout.  While the first half holds up just fine, when the drums drop at the break this thing blows wide open.

Alias closes out the ep with a remix of “The Pacificst”, which incorporates quite a bit of bounce but keeps the mood cinematically melancholic.

Ewan has recently made the full ep available as a free digital download via the Dextro site.  Big thanks – definitely get the vinyl while you can!