Better Without the Words
In this week's Freshly Spilt Milk, some of the remixes improve the orignals by doing away with the words and vocals.
In this week's Freshly Spilt Milk, some remixes improve the orignals by doing away with the words and limiting the vocals.
1. “Go Play Outside” - Memory Tapes: Memory Tapes’ airy, dream pop-like track comes to life when they keyboards enter with Kraftwerkian robotic sounds. No sonic idea overstays its welcome though some could have hung around longer. The track appears on Carport Records’ Go Play Outside, a vinyl compilation of the label’s artists.
2. “Glory” (16 Bit Lolitas remix) - Jean-Michel Jarre and M83: 16 Bit Lolitas soften this collaboration between French electronic artists from different eras, making it more tribal and ambient by stripping out the snapping electronic snare in favor of a low-end rumble and the ominous pounding of an electronic floor tom and kick drum.
3. “Remember Me” (Hannah Wants remix) - Roger Sanchez feat. Stealth: Hannah Wants’ remix gives this track some much needed bass and weight to Sanchez’s original. After I saw the words in lyric video for the original, I realized she also did us all a favor by wiping much of the vocal and sinking the parts she kept in a tarpit of sonic murk.
4. “All I See” - JackLNDN: Classic house from the British producer.
5. “Impression of You” (feat. Patrick Baker) - Giraffage & Viceroy: A sweet electronic R&B track from the San Francisco duo featuring vocalist Patrick Baker’s whose tweaked vocals ride the icy synths.
6. “Chasing (in the Night)” - Sultan + Shepard feat. Lauren Mason: My favorite thing about this house track is the way Lauren Mason’s vocals add to the groove.
7. “Stand in Your Line” - Dornik: A cool R&B groove and the second single from Dornik’s self-titled debut album, due out August 7.
8. “Small Problems” - TheBulls: Anna Bulbrook is a part-time member of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, and here she teams with The Duke Spirit’s Mark Sallis for a track that gets big and dramatic in an ’80s MTV rock kind of way.
9. “Glider” - Greyhat: Aggressive glitches nearly but never quite fragment the cooed melodic line that threads this track together.
10. “La Llama” (feat. Notch, Matty Rico, Ohmega Watts, Maluca) - Compass: Mexican Institute of Sound + Toy Selectah: Camilo Lara from Mexico City is MIS, and Toy Selectah’s from Monterey. They team up for a killer electronic cumbia that literally sounds like a party between the groove and the host of English and Spanish rappers.
11. “Booty Loose” (feat. Fly Boi Keno) - Party Favor: If arena trap isn’t already an EDM subgenre, here’s an argument for creating it.
12. “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” - YuTaNi: The lead track from the ambient new album, At the End of the Day.
13. “New Villain” - Amy Bezunartea: Amy Bezunartea’s quiet vocals border on cliché—I don’t need any more women to tacitly apologize for entering the conversation—but the spare instrumentation spiked with fragments of guitar noise keep the song tense and compelling.
14. “Cataract” (TOBACCO remix) - Dirty Ghosts: The mystery man behind Black Moth Super Rainbow remixes this angular, post-punk dance rock in ways that don’t reveal his usual sonic fingerprints. No spacey synths, no vocoder, no hip-hop beats. Instead, great Modettes/Raincoats/Delta 5 urgency and a beat that makes you want to dance in ways you never have.
15. “Bill Folderson” - Rene LaVice: The London’s DJ’s use of a swarm of bees that swarm from speaker to speaker as the defining melody line gives this track a raging physicality.
16. “Tremors” (feat. Go Comet!) - Botnek: The relentless acoustic snare drum pushes this techno track by the Canadian duo.
17. “Sun is Shining” (R3HAB remix) - Axwell /\ Ingrosso: R3HAB’s remix is often arena techno-by-numbers, but the twee original needs some muscle.
18. “House of Cyrax” - Linz Praq: A new dubstep track from the Atlanta-based producer who actually captures dub’s loose loping quality.
19. “Files” - Zeds Dead and Loudpvck: Everything trap and dubstep DJs do to get a crowd moving minus all that annoying musical connecting tissue.
20. “VL Mono” - Mophono: On DJ Shadow’s Liquid Amber label, Mophono uses dub techniques, overheated rock drums, and 8-bit bleeps to make music with a genuinely futuristic sheen.
