Soulwax - Most of the Remixes... (Parlophone)
2/5
By: Gareth Roberts
Or, to give it its full title, Most of the remixes we've made for other people over the years except for the one for Einstürzende Neubauten because we lost it and a few we didn't think sounded good enough or just didn't fit in length-wise, but including some that are hard to find because either people forgot about them or simply because they haven't been released yet, a few we really love, one we think is just ok, some we did for free, some we did for money, some for ourselves without permission and some for friends as swaps but never on time and always at our studio in Ghent. And breathe.
But I'll be honest, I'm not really a fan of the remix. It has always seemed to me to be a bit of a waste of time and effort to sit there listening to a song you may know and love only with added beats and sirens and a whole host of additional crap. I know, I sound like someone approaching the age of senility, but there's a valid point there somewhere. Whereas real music has soul and meaning and is often the product of a genuine labour of love, remixes have always struck me as being a little bit... irrelevant. So, it is with an unfathomable air of scepticism that I set about listening to this cumbersomely titled record, a collection of Soulwax / 2 Many DJs' work in the field to date. Yet if anyone can alter my cheap perception of the remix, surely it is these guys, right?
Well, yes should be the answer. What we have here is a fairly run of the mill re-jigging of some modern classics. LCD Soundsystem and The Gossip are first to go under the needle, as it were, and the results are satisfying if not mind altering. Whilst Soulwax clearly know their trade and execute their works with aplomb, it all feels rather contrived. They aren't making these songs better, they are fiddling with them for the sake of it, and that is what puzzles me. Whilst I can see that this sort of thing, with the seamless joins between tracks and sense of euphoria achieved with the sporadic twiddling of knobs, would unquestionably sound brilliant at a club in the small hours, as far as personal listening goes it's almost bordering on the insane. Why not go the whole hog and wander round with no pants on talking to traffic lights?
In all seriousness, this is music that is enjoyable when consumed in the correct context and, for what it is, is perfectly executed, so in no way is this a swipe at the perpetrators themselves. It's just that I'm a subscriber to the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' school of thought, and to my mind these songs were far from broken in the first place. However, I'm also fond of the 'each to their own' mantra, and like I said there is a time and place for this sort of thing (after all, who can deny the appeal of Kylie Minogue meandering into Daft Punk?). So, it may not be my thing, but I can quite easily see those with an ear for the remix hailing this as ground-breaking work. That completes my paradoxical splurge, I'm off to chat up a zebra crossing.
Stream four of the remixes from Most of the Remixes HERE.
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