While one can't claim that Robert Henke and Gerhard Behles of Monolake wrote the rulebook on multi-layered techno, their creative roles in the development of music software such as Ableton Live and Reaktor underline their part in rewiring some of the most advanced electronic music of the past decade. Hongkong Remastered revisits their 1997 debut album, created before Behles's departure a few years later, originally released on Berlin's Chain Reaction label. This is perhaps the most precise music to emerge from that label, and one of Monolake's most broadly satisfying albums. There's no wildstyle echo and virtually no melodic movement: just exhilarating sweeps and swarms of textures. The use of field recordings referenced in the title is a masterstroke, bonding with the rhythms as if the producers are tinkering with the music at a molecular level. "Cyan" is a humid flight through steamy, exotic forests; on "Lantau" the crickets merge with rippled synthetic tones. The album has barely dated in the decade and more since its release — a rarity in electronic music, and testament to Monolake's tightly controlled sound palette. Hongkong Remastered is habitat to some of the most vivid musical cultures ever created in the electronic laboratory.