Total Redraw: Home Listening Edition

Remixes that really shake things up

No self-respecting music fan is a stranger to the idea of the remix. After a track is completed, the stems are passed off to other like-minded producers and are reshaped to allow the style and personality of the remixer to come out while elements of the original are retained. While the odd remix on the B-side of an EP really shines, they can all too frequently come across as unnecessary additions to the original mixes, so when a really good remix comes about you’re sure to take notice.

This feature doesn’t focus specifically on ‘great remixes’, but rather remixes where the producer has taken the core track and has really invigorated the original track, leaving it recognisably the same but taking the tune in a totally different direction. After much ploughing through my music library, I’d like to present some of the most successful remixes I’ve heard where the remixer on hand has really gone beyond the call of duty; and these will be shown  and discussed along with the original tracks.

Running through a real range of contemporary music, a lot of these will be dance-focused but some are even stranger takes on recognisable classics alongside less well-known contributions. So without further ado, let’s get listening and check out some of the best remixes to be found in the White Noise vaults.

This two-part series will be split, with the first section dedicated to home listening tracks and the latter a big playlist of remixed dance music. Enjoy part 1!

Gold Panda – Marriage (Forest Swords 1am Hotel Room Redraw) 

In this stunning rework of one of Gold Panda’s best tunes, the atmospheric Forest Swords completely rebuilds the track from the ground up, entirely with acoustic instrumentation. The melody is still there, but it’s hard to imagine a more imaginative and successful redraw.

Efdemin – Acid Bells (Martyn’s Bittersweet Mix)

Sounding more Aphex Twin than Efdemin, legend Martyn relegates the original’s driving rhythms to the background, allowing a haunting piano melody to take centre stage.

Aphex Twin – Untitled (Four Tet Mix)

Apparently devised at the tender age of 17, Kieran Hebden’s IDM-fuelled mix of one of Aphex Twin’s most brilliant ambient tracks is a dream collaboration that retains aspects of both producers’ styles.

Mount Kimbie – Maybes (James Blake Remix)

James Blake applies a trademark warmth to one of Mount Kimbie’s best, fuzzing up the duo’s crisp production and lending it a woozy dubstep momentum.

Fever Ray – If I Had A Heart (Fuck Buttons Remix) 

Here Fuck Buttons take Fever Ray’s darkness as far as it will stretch, wielding a driving 4/4 and growling bass frequencies to create something black and wildly hypnotic.

Fever Ray – When I Grow Up (Version by Lissvik) 

Alongside for comparison, the most bizarre remix here is courtesy of one half of Balearic duo Studio, as Lissvik sets Fever Ray’s straining vocals to bouncing house with tropical synthlines. The strangest thing isn’t that it works, it’s that it works so damn well.

Star Slinger – May I Walk With You

Although not technically a remix, Star Slinger’s rework of Life Without Buildings' The Leanover is a brilliant recreation, taking Sue Tompkins’ jittery vocals to their logical extreme alongside tough beats and some of the catchiest looping you’re likely to hear.

Bibio – Lover’s Carving (Letherette Remix)

This dreamy hip hop rework of Bibio’s upbeat classic works like a charm, chopping up the vocals while retaining the sunshine of the original. The only flaw is that it’s all too short.

Lianne La Havas – Forget (Shlohmo Remix)

Shlohmo on excellent remixing form again, applying Lianne La Havas’ vocals both in original and chopped forms to a dreamy soundscapes replete with clicks, blips and deep haunting bass.

Agaric – No Way I Know I Feel  (Axel Boman Remix) – Clips of Original

Axel Boman takes Agaric’s dense original and cleans it up, making that nagging vocal the centrepiece of a world of swirling samples and twinkling beats.

Shlohmo – Rained The Whole Time (Nicolas Jaar Remix) 

The superb Nicolas Jaar livens up Shlohmo’s melancholy original with harder woodblock beats, blowing up the guitar in the original alongside soulful beats and samples that shift and swirl magnificently.

Colonel Abrams – Trapped (Hell Interface Remix)

Boards of Canada, under their Hell Interface moniker, take chopped and screwed to a new deathly extreme in their growling slow-down of Colonel Abrams’ 80s classic.

Burial – Shell of Light (Shlohmo Remix)

Tampering with Burial is not done lightly, but Shlohmo nails this one, isolating the hopeful last 30 seconds of the original and casting them onto an emotional widescreen with deeper-than-deep bass and ghostly vocal touches.

Nuyorican Soul – I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun (4 Hero Remix)

It’d be hard to outdo the original, backed by Masters of Work production and Jocelyn Brown’s honey tones, but 4 Hero turns the tune into a feelgood jazzy odyssey, thoroughly living up to the glory of the original.

Feature: Summer - Playlists

Baked

On Melancholy Hill – Gorillaz

Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots – Flaming Lips

Haiti – Arcade Fire

Never Stops – Deerhunter

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel

What Would I Want? Sky – Animal Collective

Bros – Panda Bear

Do You Realize?? - Flaming Lips

Good Intentions Paving Company – Joanna Newsom

Silver Soul – Beach House

May I Walk With You? - Star Slinger

West Side – The Studio

Elastic Reality (Deep Dish Does X Mix) – Casa De

When I Grow Up (Version by Lissvik) – Fever Ray

Joanna – Superpitcher

Dictaphone's Lament – Tycho

Key Sparrow – Peaking Lights

Too High To Move – Quiet Village

Mornin' – Star Slinger

New Theory – Washed Out

Round and Round – Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

Plain Material – Memory Tapes

New Beat – Toro Y Moi

Despicable Dogs – Small Black

Bicycle – Memory Tapes

Live In Dreams – Wild Nothing

Feel It All Around – Washed Out

Loaded – Primal Scream

Just Like Heaven – The Cure

The Village Green Preservation Society – The Kinks

Sunday Morning – Velvet Underground

Waterfall – Stone Roses

Feel Flows – Beach Boys

Time of the Season – Zombies

Who Loves the Sun – Velvet Underground

In this first and biggest playlist I've arranged a great selection of tracks for just chilling out in the day, classic summer music essentially. Kicking off with Gorillaz' impossibly sunny On Melancholy Hill, the first few tracks are indie-rock classics that scream summer, from the pristine piano of Grizzly Bear's Two Weeks to Animal Collective's glorious sample of The Grateful Dead in What Would I Want? Sky, by way of a few of my very favourite artists, Joanna Newsom, Beach House and Panda Bear.

Star Slinger's effortlessly catchy May I Walk With You? starts off the second section of more dancey and electro-infused cuts, veering between the house and dub-tinged cuts of Casa De, Superpitcher and Peaking Lights and the balearic swoons of The Studio (whose D. Lissvik crafted the marvellous Fever Ray remix also selected) and Quiet Village's inspired vocal track, all rounded off with another classic Star Slinger track, the shining Mornin'.

The next phase is a set of some of the best chillwave of the last few years, a genre evoking too-bright snapshots of summers past through Washed Out's brilliant disco cuts, and Wild Nothing and Memory Tapes' mellower reflections on music past.

From here we go to some classic summer anthems from some real oldies; from some incredibly famous tracks of Primal Scream, The Cure and The Stone Roses to some real gems from The Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys (including the hilarious Kinks track lampooning the conservative British villages of the time). So lay back and get listening.

Remixes #1 - Dance Mixes

I've reviewed a good few albums so far, and every so often one artist you like will remix another, and sometimes they get it just right.

Here's a little collection of some great tracks that have been remixed to make them more dancefloor-friendly:

Burial & Four Tet - Moth (Silinder Remix)

Great remix giving the whole track a lot more structure and punch.

Fever Ray – If I Had a Heart (Fuck Buttons Remix)

Really dark remix with classic Fuck Buttons stylings in re-invention; a great big wash of sound and a pounding beat.

Gold Panda – Marriage (Star Slinger Remix)

Fantastic remix with a dubby throb and a mad, rushing appropriation of all the elements that make the original so great.

How to Dress Well – Ready for the World (XXXY Remix)

XXXY injects garage with great drops and foot-shuffling beat.

M83 – Run Into Flowers (Jackson's Midnight Fuck Remix)

Glitchy appropriation of M83'S untreated synths. One of the best mixes I've ever heard.

Radiohead – Reckoner (Twelves Remix)

The much-remixed track is brilliantly remodelled into this with great beats driving Yorke's classic falsetto way into the distance.

Fever Ray – Fever Ray

To go solo from a band with such an important role in contemporary electro (The Knife) not to mention oodles of critical acclaim, must be a daunting task. While her brother Olof Dreijer was out exploring the Amazon rainforest, Karin seems to have stayed home and conjured a sound more subtle, claustrophobic and I would argue more consistent and well-realised than anything their joint outfit has produced.

It's not an easy first listen. There's no Marble House here to get you grooving with its brilliant electro-pop fusion. This album is dense and dark, it is definitely hard to pull apart. Her sounds are minimal and her lyrics oblique, but this LP is the very definition of a grower. There is so much brilliance and subtlety that still, 2 years after my first listen, I am struggling to take it all in. Her music creeps and swells; on Dry and Dusty the singular bounce of a beat introduces a barren soundscape of searing untreated synths and her voice propels itself through the tracks by the force of its own langour. Her sense of timing is exquisite, she builds up layers of oppressive synths and clattering, dropping noises that perhaps only come in once but are perfect.

This is the sound of inertia, her lyrics mythologise day-to-day existence and contrast the mundane with the profound in a way reminiscent of Thom Yorke: “We talk about love / we talk about dishwasher tablets” she sings on Seven, one of the more accessible tracks on the album with a catchy, propulsive bounce that swells beneath her contorted vocals. Her voice itself is heavily modified, as twisted and contorted as the ambience of the LP, often switching between two modes which almost represent a masculine and a feminine, juxtaposed to superb effect on Dry and Dusty, as they are alternated within the space of a single track. Not only is her toying with gender artful, striking and incredibly unusual within the context of an electro album, but it also leaves you wondering who is actually singing most of the time on The Knife's back catalogue, if her singular voice can be modified in so many ways.

It's impossible to really pick out standout tracks from the album: Triangle Walks has a superb tribal aesthetic and possibly the catchiest vocal hook on the record, while Concrete Walls introduces itself with a dubby throb of pure inert claustrophobia. Keep the Streets Empty For Me builds into a creeping anthem as her plea to be alone and her curious attitude towards her own isolation become more and more desperate until instead of exploding into the expectant climax they recede; there is no catharsis to save this narrator from her own mind. This is a technique that she employs to fantastic effect elsewhere, such as in the taut Now's the Only Time I Know which does explode (incredibly satisfyingly, may I add) but then quietens down and fades away.

This is a woman who is entirely a master of her own aesthetic: she realises that the emotions she is getting across are not easily solved by violent outbursts, it is a desolate cry from a soul who has retreated too far inside herself to recover, with echoes of nostalgia and isolation throughout her curious and often brilliantly evocative lyrics. She doesn't compromise her vision for anything, but the album is still eminently listenable, from the frighteningly lost vocal harmonies of If I Had a Heart to the lush electro soundscape of closer Coconut there is not a note or line put wrong.

I understand that this album is not the easiest to get into, it will definitely require several listens and perhaps a few lonely walks, but from start to finish it is utterly superb. Satisfying, uncompromising and haunting, this is as close to flawless as an album can get.

10/10