This is the first official remix of a Glass Candy song, "I Always Say Yes (Baron von Luxxury Remix)." This is actually Parts II and III of what turned into a 19 minute remix of the song, in five different parts. Here's how it happened. Since last April I've been working on the remix and meeting up with Johnny Jewel after Glass Candy and Chromatics shows in San Francisco, Brooklyn and LA. We'd discuss the latest mix, and then a few days later I’d get text messages and emails with suggestions. "Ida likes her vocals in this part." "Try using more repetition." Then we'd both get busy with other things (I was remixing Scissors for Lefty, CSS, Sunny Day Sets Fire, Robots in Disguise AND Ms. Hilary Duff, as well as signing a publishing deal; he's running Italians Do It Better and writing/producing/touring with all the amazing bands on that label) and time would pass.
Until somehow nine months went by, and the remix became 19 minutes long! Finally, late this past November I met Mr. Jewel in the parking lot of a Best Western in LA after Glass Candy's show at the Troubadour. I gave him a CDR, we talked, and the next week I got a txt from him saying: "congratulations, the saga is over!" And so it is; and here are Parts II and III of the remix. (The rest is coming soon.)
A FEW MUSICAL THOUGHTS THAT WENT INTO THIS REMIX, I.E. WHY IT TOOK ME 9 MONTHS TO MAKE: The original song "I Always Say Yes" is an icy disco masterpiece. I didn't want to give it a "typical" remix treatment i.e. bump up the BPM, add slammin' kick, distorted bass, compress like hell. I just felt that Glass Candy is the antithesis of the bloghouse banger aesthetic, and the track deserved something different. I focused on the fact that the original song has an unusual structure: there's no chorus. There are plenty of hooks, to be sure, but no real refrain.
So I decided to make something of a *reverse* remix. I chopped up Ida No's original vocal into dozens of individual phonemes, and rearranged each one to create an entirely new melody for the verse. Then I added all new music underneath - an entirely new song, really - to showcase the sound and retain the mystery and enigma of her incredible voice in a new context. Finally, I found a line from the original vocal, added a second vocal track and pitched it up to create a harmony, and thus was born the chorus. All the original vocal parts are retained, but completely re-ordered.
The result is a blend of Schoenberg's serialism meets the Cocteau Twins via Crystal Castles. At the end of the day I think I did the original justice, without doing it Justice. Part III (also included in this Mp3) extends the same re-modelling idea to the original music, with the addition of silence as a new element. By contrast with part II, there is no vocal in this section, and I only added light percussion in parts. The absence of sound as a compositional element was inspired by Miles Davis' famous line about the importance of "knowing when *not* to play." Anyway, that's my pretentious explication. Thanks for listening, hope you like the music. Sincerely, Baron von Luxxury is my Fake Name
Writing for discoworkout.com is such a great way for me to leave little breadcrumbs during the year that later serve as reminders of those moments. What follows is not really a top ten, but rather a list of memorable things that I wrote about in 2007, and there happen to be ten of them. So bust out your Madelines and prepare for a Proustian outburst of nostalgia for the recent past.
1. Faux Disco Vrai
In many ways 2007 was the year of "the banger." And as you'll see in this list, I certainly loved me some Justice, Van She, Boys Noize and the like. But more often than not in 2007 I found myself turning down the distorted thrashers and actually *listening* to the Italians Do It Better compilation, "After Dark." It's basically Johnny Jewel's production reel - he produced and performed almost everything with his bands and alter egos. I got deeper and deeper into more and more slower and slower disco as the year went on, thanks in no small part to this record, which included Glass Candy's "Rolling Down The Hills" and their Belle Epoque cover, "Miss Broadway" (the original "Miss Broadway" has also been the soundtrack to my last few months). I also listened to a lot of In Flagranti and Black Devil Disco Club too but never got around to posting the latter. So, here:
MP3: Black Devil Disco Club - "Coach Me (Again And Again version with In Flagranti)"
2. Australia
What the hell is in the water "down under" in "Oz" that all the "Aussies" are drinking? Midnight Juggernauts got more than their share of shout outs on this blog, as well as an interview I did with them (which, in turn, brought my copy of ELO's Time back into heavy rotation). The fruits of Van She's remixing division was never far from my ears, and their remix of Sneaky SoundSystem's "UFO" was probably in all my DJ sets. I covered a few tracks by Bag Raiders and Valentinos, and DiscoWorkout.com readers can say they were *there* before Knightlife, blew up which seems likely in 2008. Cut Copy's 2006 Fabric mix CD kept proving itself prescient this year, so be sure to go grab their new mix (courtesy of BiBaBiDi), as it is likely to contain a preview of what 2008 will sound like. And the Presets, one of my favorite bands of 2006, have a new single and a new record coming out next year.
MP3: "Kafka (Bag Raiders What Y'all Kno 'Bout Five Remix)" - Valentinos
3. My Moon My Man
Boys Noize remix of Feist's "My Moon My Man", which I posted in my "Songs of the Year So Far" post this summer, was my favorite track of 2007.
MP3: "My Moon My Man (Boys Noize Remix)" - Feist
4. Summer in New York City
Speaking of that post, I'm not sure if it's because I got hella hella busy or paid less attention in the latter half of the year, but most of my favorite songs this year were already locked by the time I did my mid year review and my Summer Night City Mix in July. So you could pretty much download this and the Feist track and consider it a guide to 2007 in a nutshell.
Link: Baron von Luxxury's Summer Night City Mix
5. Dragonette
I never got sick of listening to Dragonette's "I Get Around" in its many different forms. There was the pop deliciousness of the original song, the blissfully simplistic Midnight Juggernauts remix, and this remix by Van She Tech (yet another one I never posted that I meant to):
MP3: "I Get Around (Van She Tech Remix)" - Dragonette
6. Justice vs. Justice Backlash
Did you notice how our Justice coverage dried up early in the year? That wasn't an accident. (Nor was our dropping out of the New Rave ink race.) But I as I review my songs of the year, this one keeps popping up, so I gotta break that rule. Plus, there are so many remixes out there that people might forget that the originals are pretty damn amazing. Here's another song I never posted that I meant to, and that is in my top 5 favorite songs of the year:
MP3: Justice "Phantom II" (the original, not remixed at all)
7. Girls on Pop
I was going to do a post called "Best Pop Music Sung By Girls with English Accents And Not On The Radio in California so It Might As Well Be Indie For All I'm Concerned, With Regard to Cred/Commercialness And All" but I never did. Or maybe "Frankly I'm Exposed to Bloc Party More Than I Am These songs But If This Is Pop Music Than Dammit I Love Pop Music." Here are three more songs filed under "things I never posted that I meant to":
MP3: "In The Mood For Love" - Kylie Minogue
** Note - this song was produced by Mylo and *criminally* dropped from her album...a travesty!
MP3: "About You Now (Kissy Sell Out rmx)" - Sugababes
MP3: "Swinging London Town" - Girls Aloud
Actually Dragonette should totally be in this category too, but I put them in #5 and don't want to write a new tenth thing.
8. Nostalgia
Some classic 80's synthpop-related stuff I wrote about that I think is worth checking out if you missed it the first time includes a piece I did on David Sylvian, one on Daniel Ash, the awkwardness that is Goth, the awesomeness of Moroder's "The Chase" and his work with Sparks, and Propaganda.
9. Dolly
In the last month or so I've kinda gotten into old country music, especially the female singers like Dolly Parton and Peggy Lee. I'm totally fucking serious. Melancholy, haunting, and very moving.
MP3: "Honky Tonk Angels" - Dolly Parton
10. Death
Losing Theresa and Jeremy was shocking and horrible. Theresa loved Steely Dan. I played their entire catalog plus this Blonde Redhead song at her memorial in New York City a few weeks ago. That and the Vanity Fair article put a surreal spin on an otherwise fulfilling year. I'm disappointed with some people but they'll get theirs.
I still can't believe I'm writing this.
I will always miss them.
MP3: "Hey Nineteen" - Steely Dan
MP3: "23" - Blonde Redhead
Theresa and Me in Paris, 1995
xx,
Baron von Luxxury is My Fake Name
