Kruder & Dorfmeister The K&D Sessions

Vienna’s Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister famously didn’t release a proper studio LP together until nearly 27 years after putting out their first EP, 1993’s G-Stoned. Their 1998 mixed compilation, The K&D Sessions, served as a bit of a stand-in for many years—a survey of their collected works at the time, which were primarily remixes (save for two original productions here). “This release manifested our mission to make people feel great when they lose themself in the music,” Kruder tells Apple Music. “We are extremely happy that we can present this now, finally, the way it was intended.” That is to say, you could, of course, find these individual remixes dotting the catalogues of their respective artists. But sewn together with the same moody, journeylike cohesion of Kruder & Dorfmeister’s 1996 DJ-Kicks contribution, here the songs weave a tapestry of the late-’90s dance world—and a bit beyond. The mixing is predictably flawless, but the focus is still very much on the duo’s production. It’s a reminder of how deftly they could cut drum ’n’ bass tunes in half-time, rehydrating the songs’ jazzy components (particularly Roni Size & Reprazent’s “Heroes” and Alex Reece’s “Jazz Master”) with an organic quality—and imbuing them with an eerie exotica vibe—that made them sound like they were being performed live. K&D’s remixes of fellow nu-jazz/broken-beat practitioners Sofa Surfers and Truby Trio are as lush and dynamic as one might expect for the time, but perhaps some of the best reworks here are the surprises: Depeche Mode’s “Useless”—which imagines Dave Gahan singing in a lounge act—and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s “1st of tha Month”, rendered as slowed-down, tripped-up electro-rap-jazz for melting into the couch.