Mix the Vibe: Wild Pitch Switch 2001

As one of the founding member of Chicago acid unit Phuture, DJ Pierre made one of the most essential contributions to modern music, inducting the 303 acid line into the vocabulary of dance music producers and forever sending the already cutting-edge sound of electronic music into overdrive. Having developed acid, Pierre put his solo efforts into a new sound with an equally excellent name. "Wild pitch" might have been more closely tied to traditional disco and garage-influenced house, but the energizing filter sweeps ensured that the dancefloor stayed excited while paving the way for Daft Punk and their French-filtered disco brethren. This mix, part ten in King Street's Mix the Vibe series, finds Pierre updating his wild pitch formula to remain current with house music trends. Unfortunately, many of these tracks by Kimara Lovelace, Cevin Fisher, and Pierre himself sound like dated disco-garage retreads mixed with some simple filtering techniques long surpassed by younger artists like DJ Sneak. Pierre's selection also feels haphazard, with most subsequent tracks switching up in style so that a solid groove is difficult to maintain. Pierre should certainly be respected for the many steps forward he's made for dance music, but a little time to dig up his older releases would be time better spent than listening to this current incarnation.