Listening to Rex the Dog’s long-awaited debut LP (well, at least as far as the Rex the Dog moniker is concerned – Jake Williams, the man behind Rex, has been producing dance music since 1993) ‘The Rex the Dog Show’ you start to realise two things. One, that Rex is making some of the best electro house doing the rounds at the moment – his tunes and remixes are wonderfully consistent and brilliantly produced. And two, that Rex himself is thoroughly convinced of this fact. I mean, how else do you explain the presence of no less than EIGHT previously released singles on a 14 song album. Granted one is a 2008 remake of ‘Maximize’, and another, ‘Frequency’, has essentially been split into two separate tunes, but that is still a lot of previously issued material to be banking off. Moreover, of the remaining six tracks, one is a 40 second album opener, and another is a downbeat two and a half minute interlude. So, in essence we have four new tracks to get excited about, and maybe it’s just me, but that just doesn’t seem like a hell of a lot for a debut album.

But wait, there’s more.

It does kinda bother me that two of the tracks on the album are actually remixes Rex has done of other artists. Stonking remixes as they may be (being his take on The Knife’s ‘Heartbeat’ and The Sounds’ ‘Tony the Beat’), it does seem a little cheeky. If you’re that pleased with the results, then surely bring them on as collaborators and do something new with them, rather than relying on tracks that are now almost two years old.

Finally though, and this may just be because I already know the original singles, in his efforts to make the whole thing feel a little more ‘album-y’ he’s trimmed the singles back to ‘album’ lengths. Excessively so. The longest track is 4:14, and many are far under that, and as a result many of the ideas seem under-developed and almost all of them start suddenly and finish up well before it feels like they should. Let’s be honest, it’s kinda hard to cultivate a groove in two and half minutes.

In the end the entire thing just feels like a Rex the Dog sampler, and perhaps that’s the best way of seeing it. This isn’t so much a wholly contained album as it is an extended advertisement for his quite remarkable back-catalogue of singles. Which I guess is a little more like it was back in the early days of dance, when LPs often functioned as collections of previously released but now unavailable slabs of vinyl. But I guess things have changed quite a bit now (the concept of something becoming ‘unavailable’ these days is almost impossible to conceive) and as a result I think we’ve come to expect more from our releases. Still, none of this is to say that the tracks on here, considered individually and together, don’t constitute quite a good album (hell, I’m sure I’ll be playing it plenty over summer), just that for those of us who are already familiar with Rex’s sound there’s not a lot in here to entice you. Go blow your money on the singles instead – Frequency, Circulate, Maximise, Tony the Beat, E-Talking, Heartbeat, Girls (The Prodigy), Happiness (Goldfrapp) – they’re all worthy of a spot in your collection. I’m just not entirely sure that this album is.

So we end on a buoyant note though, here be music! First up is the album’s revised edition of Maximise, probably the best tune on there, a deliberate, furious stormer of a track that has dancefloor mayhem etched into every facet of its being. If only it didn’t end so abrup-

Rex The Dog – Maximise 2008

Second, we have Kenson’s slightly harder edged take on the album’s ‘first’ single ‘I Can See You, Can You See Me?’. The single itself is a brilliant and varied release, featuring both radio and club cuts of the tune, along with remixes by Kenson, Drop the Lime, Mr Miyagi and more. Pick it up at Beatport or the iTunes Store.

Rex the Dog – I Can See You, Can You See Me? (Kenson Remix)

And for posterity’s sake, here’s Rex’s wonderfully anthemic version of Soulwax’s ‘E-Talking’. Classique.

Soulwax – E-Talking (Rex The Dog Remix)

And just because it’s the cutest thing ever, this animated gif from the RTD myspace:

Awwwwwwwwwwww.

-luke