May the pauses between two albums get longer, because we all get older – but is it me, or has it really taken a tiny eternity until Tom Shear would continue with his marvelous career under his moniker ASSEMBLAGE 23? "Spark" – the appetizer for Tom’s upcoming new album "Compass" comes out like a long-missed friend. Quality composition meets catchy Synth arrangements with the right speed to reach dancefloor-compatibility, meets Tom’s deep male vocal performance. Sure, "Spark" won’t re-invent his self-initiated music genre Synth-/Futurepop, but to me this track is about light-years better than "Binary", the Si-CD release out of "Meta". Unfortunately this counts only for Tom’s self-produced original version of this track, I am not too happy with remix contributions provided by COMBICHRIST and by Jade of BLAQK AUDIO. It shows once again, that only very seldom a remix can be able to reach the quality of the original – but what the heavily overestimated COMBICHRIST have produced here with plain and minimal bass lines and cow bells (?) is noting else than ridiculous. Two additional b-sides are available, on which the instrumental "Helicopter Girl" with it’s abstract synth drops rather reminds on Tom’s side-project NERVE FILTER, while "The Poison Moon" is well done enough to take part on an album – no filling stuff at all. "Spark" is all in all a good appetizer for the new album, although the remix contributions can not avoid the impression, that they got included because of business-related reasons.