16-17: The Pandemic Wargames Remixes

August 4, 2020 metatron

Praxis 58
16-17
The Pandemic Wargames Remixes
12″ – 24-08-2020

<a href="http://praxisrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-pandemic-wargames-remixes">The Pandemic Wargames Remixes by 16-17</a>

Release date: 24-08-2020

16-17 return to Praxis with a triple assault of ultrasonic remixes. The Pandemic Wargames Remixes are based on backing tracks originally recorded in 1995 for a follow up to the album Gyatso which eventually materialised earlier in 2020 in the form of the Phantom Limb LP on Trost. After that Alex Buess once more gave three tracks a severe treatment for The Pandemic Wargames Remixes 12″ on Praxis, bringing sound and mix firmly into the 2020s.

16-17 return to Praxis with a triple assault of ultrasonic remixes. The Pandemic Wargames Remixes are based on backing tracks originally recorded in 1995 for a follow up to the album Gyatso which eventually materialised earlier in 2020 in the form of the Phantom Limb LP on Trost. After that Alex Buess once more gave three tracks a severe treatment for The Pandemic Wargames Remixes 12″ on Praxis, bringing sound and mix firmly into the 2020s.
16-17 started in 1983 in Basel, Switzerland as a three-piece “industrial punk jazz” outfit with Alex Buess, Markus Kneubühler and Knut Remond. They released a number of cassettes, before debuting with their self titled album in 1987. Two years later this was followed up by When All Else Fails, an LP of treated live recordings on Vision, the precursor label to Praxis.
By this time 16-17 had already garnered a cult following with their incredibly forceful live performances.
Around the same time there was a proliferation of side-projects and Alex Buess became the sound mixer/co-producer of the Vision material and it wasn’t till 1994 that the band came out with a new album. Gyatso was produced by Kevin Martin (Techno Animal, The Bug) and released on his Pathological label (re-released in 2008 on Savageland, both times on CD only) and, besides Martin, featured G.Green (Godflesh) as a guest musician.
Buess also collaborated with Martin on the ICE project which also included Justin Broadrick aka J.K.Flesh of Godflesh, the other half of Techno Animal. Buess also took part of the Sprawl project with Peter Brötzmann, William Parker, Michael Wertmüller and Stephan Wittwer which appeared on Trost Records in 1997.
Following Gyatso there were to be two other significant releases bearing the 16-17 name. The first was a direct outgrowth of the collaborations with Kevin Martin: Human Distortion, released on Digital Hardcore Recordings in 1998, and Mechanophobia on Praxis (Praxis 31, 1999).
Mechanophobia presented two “Sound System Mixes”, dynamic, morphing tracks, produced by Alex Buess and Roger Graf, and featuring Daniel Buess on drums. Around the same time the two Buess started the Cortex project and would together reappear on Praxis with Vacuum Theory (Praxis 48) in 2011 and “Skin Craft” (Praxis 55) in 2016.
Unknown to the public there were a number of 16-17 recordings with the line-up Alex Buess/Damien Bennett/Michael Wertmüller from 1995 which had remained unfinished. Out fo these, with contributions of Eugene S. Robinson, Kasia Meow and Roger Graf, the album Phantom Limb was crafted in 2018/2019 and released on Trost in January 2020.
Out of these sessions came the raw material to The Pandemic Wargames Remixes which include the first track of the Phantom Limb album ‘The Hate Remains The Same’, as well as two more mixes,including the heavy dub version of ‘Nemesis’.