Following superb Strategy albums on Kranky, Paul Dickow shifts gears from the free-floating dub stylings of Drumsolo’s Selight to the classic disco-funk of “Super Vamp.” The change to a mre jubliant mix of disco beats, hand claps and bubbling bass lines at first startles, but Dickow sill manages to sneak in some dubby treatments.  In Nudge’s remix, the song’s disco core is given a loose-limbed house makeover sweetened by female vocal coos.  On the B-side, Solenoid’s effervescent approach produces an impossibly funky, electro-disco mix deepened by thick synth stabs, while Dickow’s “Strategy Dub-a-pella” ambient mix makes for a deep and dreamy coda.  All in all, Super Vamp offers a more animated spin on Strategy’s sound that’s tailor-made for nightclubbing.

—Ron Schepper, Grooves

“Super Vamp” is disco done house-style, spun from a simple, funky loop—a nugget of intricate percussion and a sighing, fragmented melody. Core elements are added, subtracted and rearranged as the track plays out (it’s almost six minutes long!), occasionally spiced with more intricate synth embellishments. The finished piece—which doesn’t sound finished at all, really—lands in the same ambient/dub/techno DMZ as a lot of The Orb’s early work.

The EP’s two remixes approach the track from very different directions. Nudge’s remix hacks away a lot of the busy-busy dancefloor filigree, leaving a compressed, squelchy pop framework over which a pair of vocalists emote at nearly inaudible levels. Deep house and electro flourishes complete the picture, and there’s a stuttering drumbeat at the very end that sounds for all the world like an attempt to cut over to New Order’s “Blue Monday”. Solenoid’s remix makes a beeline for electro city, employing synthetic handclaps, vocoded vocals and an assertively strangulated synth lead. Of the three full-length mixes, it’s the most likely to keep a dancefloor crowd involved.

Strategy’s dub-a-pella mix is a classic 12” filler cut—a gentler, floatier version of the original “Super Vamp” that reaffirms the track’s roots in ambient dub. There’s nothing wrong with it, but most listeners would probably be better served by a longer version of Solenoid’s remix.

—George Zahora, Splendid

Clothes are sure to come off and booties graze the ground to Strategy’s deep dub-disco. The mysterious producer culls elements of house, electro and French techno-pop (think Daft Punk) to create “hi-tension funk” geared toward dance floors and the super-freaks on them.

—Bill Picture, SF Examiner

Es gab wohl überhaupt noch keine Orac EP die ich nicht für eine Erleuchtung gehalten habe und daran ändert die neue Strategy mit Sicherheit nichts. Es geht los mit einem leichten Gitarrenhousetracks der so voller Glück steckt, dass man zu jedem noch so heimlichen Harmoniewechsel die Hände in die Luft reissen möchte, der Nudge-Remix wandelt das noch mal mit Vocals und Cutupmethoden in einen deepen Housesound und dann kommt auf dem nächsten Mix auch noch eine der unglaublichsten Funkacidbasslines. Killer. Und die nächste Caro ist auch schon in Arbeit.

There’s probably yet been no Orac EP which I didn’t hang onto for enlightenment, and the new Strategy surely doesn’t change anything.  It’s loose, with easy guitar house tracks so full of luck that at each secret chord change you still want to throw your hands in the air-- the Nudge remix changes it up more with vocals and cutup methods into a deep house sound and then with the next mix comes one of the most unbelievable funkacidbasslines.  Killer.  And the next Caro is in the works too.

—bleed, de:bug [*****]