I say Bon Iver, and the first word that comes into your head is… remix? Well it should be, because this is the remix of week!
Now I gotta say that I hate flashy remixes as much as the next guy, but you have nothing to fear when it comes to this classy styling of Bon Iver’s sweet sweet Blood Bank.
The new set of drum beats backing the song will make the original feel lacking, and incomplete. So please, Listen At Your Own Risk.
Thanks to Twitter, I just got this update from Samantha Crain (@sjcrain, for those looking to follow her) “my work so far this morning http://bit.ly/1Cyf4“. According to her tumblr blog:
so i bought myself a little set up and am going to try to teach myself how to do this…i learned a little bit a few years ago but don’t remember much of it and all the recordings i did were like 1 and 2 tracks…all these demos will be good practice for when it comes time to do the film composing i’ve got lined up…
so hear is my first attempt at a protools session in 3 years, and my first attempt at a protools session over 2 tracks ever…haha…
Remember the time you dropped acid and imprisoned yourself in a circle of VHF televisions, all of which were tuned to Sesame Street reruns and late-night programming? Eric Copeland does.
In this follow-up to 2007’s Hermaphrodite, Copeland captures the spirit of always-smiling commercial jingles and forcibly mingles it with the noise of his better-known noise band, Black Dice. Repo, which the group released earlier this year, is similar to Alien in its perverted hip-hop leanings, but Copeland’s solo work is more distinct and ultimately more affecting.
“How much pleasure can I wring from unpleasant noise?” he must have asked himself. There are playful four-on-the-floor bass hits, voices delayed into a formless goop, and a waltzing guitar solo. That’s just the title track. “Reptilian Space Beings, Shapeshifting Bloodsucking Vampires” sounds like the intro to the great lost Beastie Boys jam. “Al Anon” lumbers like a retarded ape before flinging itself into space.
But the album is most exciting when Copeland allows his loops to wander down unexpected rabbit holes. Things get groovy (is that J Dilla? No, it’s “Auto Dimmer”), tribal (“Osni”) and a little hedonistic (the excellent “Wolfman”). It’s all here, and it’s more whole than anyone expected.
For an artist whose past work dwells in incoherence, Copeland’s artistic vision certainly has matured. Though Alien is actually the sum of two EP’s, one of which hit stores last year, the record is surprisingly cohesive. Snippets of vocal delivery (“Anyone else smoke the marijuana?” in the opening track, for instance) are extracted and then abused: sped up, backmasked, stripped of meaning. In this way, Alien is a study of the way in which repetition is mutating, debasing. Experimental indeed.
Alien is so good because its sonic tinkering is its most arresting feature. In a word, Copeland is no longer afraid to be liked. His best work, and one of the most exciting releases of the year.
So I am a little behind in sharing this with you, but David Gray has a new album coming out towards the end of next month. The album will be titled Draw the Line and is being released on Downtown Records. I haven’t always been the biggest fan of David Gray, but between my wife and I there isn’t an album that one of us doesn’t own. So I am sure that at least one of us will end up owning and loving Draw the Line. He’s released a new single from the record, called “Fugitive.” I’m sure what I think about it yet, but fortunately for you that doesn’t really matter, since you can watch the video below and decide for yourself.
As I was doing a little research for this post, I discovered that Gray actually has an entire covers album called A Thousand Miles Behind, that I was completely unaware of. It’s all live acoustic performances of great songs by some legendary artists, such as Bob Dylan or Randy Newman. Here are couple tracks off of that record for all those intrigued.
I say Bon Iver, and the first word that comes into your head is… remix? Well it should be, because this is the remix of week!
