CHIRP: The Chicago Independent Radio Project

Dan Morgridge writes

Favorite Remixes of 2008

2008 saw my album consumption drop off quite a bit from recent years. It could be due to the recession – I just didn’t want to go out and buy much these days. It could be that I wasn’t going out to many shows and picking up the band’s LP as a souvenir. It could be that I just like finding music on the internet, which I did quite a bit of this year. Besides, nothing quite dominates the talk of the internet town like a good remix. Sure, the heyday of mash-ups has mostly come and gone – Girl Talk decided there could be only one and apparently he was Highlander. But his fantastically fun work aside, the vast majority of those weren’t even showcases for talent – merely contests to see who could create the best beatmatch of two polar opposite tunes.

This year’s bumper crop of DJ retouches shows a healthy dose of re-interpretation that went beyond simply scraping the vocals off of one song and skittering them all over a beat. These pieces, while varying in tone and technique, tend to show a theme of DJ’s re-inventing a song to fully live up to it’s potential, or to a dark side (and occasionally lighter side) you never knew it had. Just think of them as editors the musicians never knew they had – maybe they’ll grumble about the changes, but in my humble opinion, they’ve honed something great out of the original that wasn’t seen before.

10. Kids Are Your Friends MGMT vs. Justice vs. Pitbull (Japattack! Reeemix)

The mash-up in 2008 seemed to be almost total anathema, except when in the pastiche styings of one Greg Gillis, or our own fine Chicagoans in the same realm, The Hood Internet. But two songs, becoming one? That doesn’t fly these days. Yet here we go, and to add insult to injury, we’ll use one part MGMT, a band many probably have a toothache from due to AAA stations sniffing around Vampire Weekend and wondering who they could nibble at next to keep the trend rolling. Yet Japattack uses them, with a two-blog-cycles-stale Justice track, plus a dash of Pitbull, and finds something greater than its parts. The urgent Justice vocals over the wilting piano riff gives an odd emotive kick to the track, and then when they dovetail off into the background for a second, Pitbull arrives to drop a verse and start something even odder, yet functional – somehow leading the two tracks in step behind him to form one big Voltron of teeth-gritting dance music.

9. Knocked Up – Kings of Leon (Lykke Li vs. Rodeo Remix)

Kings of Leon made a big splash this year, but no matter how good they can reach at points (Sex on Fire was quite good), they still sound like the Tiny Toons cohort of Lynnard Skynnard. On “Knocked Up, they find a nice volume concept and sparse arrangement to match to Caleb’s thoughtful wailing. But the drums interrupt a little too harshly for even a jolting song stir – they’re downright harsh. And the really, really, really stupid background wailing by one of the other brothers three ruins the piece, and any kind of introspective catharsis moment they might have accomplished in it. So you fix it like you would fix anything this year – you add Lykke Li to it, of course. Rodeo (if that is indeed the man behind the mix?) makes a lovely faux interplay and occasional duet between the two. He also adds a bizarre fantasy world around them of bent sounds and 8-bit bleeps with an urgent beat underneath for a lovely contrast. The echos on the vocal are just tasteful enough to make it triumphant instead of tacky.

8. Little Bit – Lykke Li (Loving Hand Remix)

With the sparse orient of the guitar and occasional tingles of percussion, Lykke Li had already found a pretty spacey place for her simple little love song, but one that certainly left room for someone to come in a muck about. Thankfully, Loving Hand (aka Tim Goldsworthy of DFA) didn’t miss the point entirely, and put a four to the floor just because there was space for it. He finds some nice synthy bass funk to underlie Lykke Li’s lithe cooing, and starts working in a saxophone – a cheesy, 80’s jazz-tastic saxophone – until halfway through the track, Lykke has left the building, and it’s just the title track to some action/romance thriller we never got to grow up with and really should have.

7. See The Light – The Hours (Calvin Harris Remix)

Calvin Harris sounds like he’s living out a daydream – amateur producer found on Myspace, scouted and signed contracts with EMI and Sony BMG when he was only 22, and then catapulted to fame (well, mostly British fame) through work with superstars (well, British superstars) Kylie Minogue and Dizzee Rascal (who, in fact, are British, or from British prison colony countries). But the kid is famous, and he’s working with people you and I couldn’t get within fifteen feet of. Why?

Because Calvin Harris took a warbly acoustic bit of dried out psychedelia and, instead of yawning, found exactly the misfit pieces he needed to make a monster. He built a steady beat and hung some reversed samples on it, the hook being one stretched beyond recognition or even good taste outside of amateur Pro-Tools sessions. But it works – and it fucking JAMS. A sweaty house banger has been summoned, and then, for a second, Calvin puts back the original track’s piano, slightly scratched up – as if you accidentally stepped into a room with a piano player, and before either of your could say anything, the floor fell through into an even sweatier club. The title phrase, set into its new word bubble, is transformed from a hippie-dippie ponderance into a declaration worthy of anyone too high for hubris on dancing in the moment and god knows what else. The track clocks in at an acceptable six minutes, somehow trimming a minute off of the original – which might be Calvin’s neatest trick of all.

6. Lose Control – Kish Mauve (Fred Falke Remix)

As Kylie Minogue’s occasional writer and no slouch of a singer on her own, Kish Mauve should become a household name in a matter of time. But for the moment, she’s been riding high on the success of her Kylie-covered “Lose Control”, which they both perform in the same vein – sassy, confident, and backed by smug beats that sound too close to Madonna’s kick-down-your-door fierceness or Shirley Manson Garbage, respectively – neither exactly poster girls for showing the intoxicating weakness of lust. But Freddie Falke, the man who always has a plan, sets Kish’s voice against an appropriate backdrop for the subject material – the faded slap bass of bygone disco days. Here, Kish’s plaintive vocals yearn, and make the listener weak at the knees with her – as opposed to just hearing a slick imitation of lust.

5. Lights Out – Santogold (David Rubato Remix)

David Rubato brings a rubbery, sly trance styling to Santogold’s sweetest tune – turning it from a goodnight-kiss rocker (if there was some bizarre prank involving producers putting out all their Santogold tracks seperately, and then to release an entirely different album backed by a Cars cover band, they certainly pulled it off) into the track that closes down the club and gets the credits rolling. The shimmering chorus with it’s pitch-sunk backup chorus sounds like it was meant to be all along, and once again Santogold’s simple lyrics and heartfelt delivery sell the song.

4. The Dull Flame Of Desire – Bjork feat Antony Hegarty (Modeselektor’s Rmx For Girls)

Out of all the left-fielders that one might point a finger at in this post, surely none can trump the triumvirate represented here. Bjork’s all-but-forgotten Volta held a hidden gem – her collaboration with Antony, a duo of voices so unique and gorgeous that any DJ would wet him or herself for the chance to work with such ingredients – especially with such a vanilla dirge behind them on the album cut. Modeselektor went ahead and made two remixes of the song – who could stop at just one? For some reason, the “Remix For Boys” wanders off into some god-forsaken land and never so much as sends a postcard, but we never noticed – the remix for girls is absolutely enthralling. Bjork becomes an arsenal of vox effects – building up to her own voice to break the spell, followed shortly by Antony – the violently sexy interplay between them given tension missing before by having extra beats interplay with Brian from Lightning Bolt’s powerful, if nuanced (and for Lightning Bolt, downright polite) drumming. This all culminates in a driving, rising, amazing…ah, the hell with it. Bjork is just really damn hot.

3. L.E.S. Artistes – Santogold (XXXchange remix)

I don’t know who wins out as siren of the year for 2008 – Lykke Li and Santogold both made great cases for themselves (and appeared twice on this list, for what it’s worth). But amongst LL’s great songs and remixes, XXXchange by and far takes the cake with this fucking anthem of anthems. Santogold poured her heart out into these vocals, and XXXchange rightly rescued them from the pop-creeper with a U2 lite-rocker chorus that she accidentally trapped them in. The stark, plodding beat he lays down lets every word from Santo ring loud, and adds only pointing details towards the real star of the show – Santogold’s poetic, wistful lovesong to herself.

2. Astrology Days – Lymbic System (The One AM Radio Remix)

When I heard this remix for the first time, I knew in the first 45 seconds that it would be one of my favorites songs of the year. Opening with the telegraph transmitting beat, opening into the full, flush horns laid over the shuffling shimmy drumbeat laced with handclaps, giving way to a xylophone solo, leaving the claps to take all the beat, and then having the trumpets return for a somber, proud reprise – and the whole thing is done in a mere 2;52? A tiny, perfect little gem – painfully short in comparison to the other entrants here, but maybe exactly right because of it.

1. Baby – PNAU (Breakbot Remix)

There’s only so much room for a person to step back from themselves and try and view certain parts of their life, or artifacts of them, objectively. As it stands here, Breakbot’s take on “Baby” exists in a chicken-and-the-egg, High Fidelity kind of conundrum – did I love it because it was so integrated into fond memories from this year, or did I integrate it into those fond memories because I loved it? For my own purposes, I can’t tell and I don’t care, mostly because months upon months later, I can still listen to the song from start to finish and not grow tired of a beat. With the panache and shameless glitter of a Daft Punk affair, Breakbot has a shimmering Roland dance with a piano through the opening, building up to a chorus of kids shouting out a love song about how God made them this way, “A-O-M-O-A”. It’s hokey, silly, goofy stuff -but whereas the original reaches about as deep into your heart as “Frontier Psychiatrist”, Breakbot finds a way to put a tux on the goofy charm, give it a spaceship, and have it offer you an affair in the stars. (And it turns out you end up taking it up on the offer, and you live happily ever after).

Honorable Mentions

Embrace – Pnau ft. Ladyhawke (Fred Falke & Miami Horror Remix)

Make It So – Daedelus (XXXchange Remix)

Monster Hospital – Metric (MSTRKRFT Remix)

Lights & Music -Cut Copy (Boys Noize Happy Birthday Remix)

Bathroom Gurgle – Late of the Pier (Breakbot Remix)

You can find other favorites here.