In an exciting move, a new writer has joined Daydream Station! Meet Amanda. She is a girl. She likes good music. She is interested in writing about it. Score! At some point, we will definitely put up pictures and background about ourselves on this blog, you know, for the stalkers. We will also be starting our parallel countdowns of the top 100 tracks of the decade (2000-2009) in the near future, so you will be able to learn more about our respective tastes and pick up some unbelievable tracks in the process. In the meantime, every other Wednesday you can expect her to contribute our new regular feature, Remix Roundup. Read through, download liberally and I think you'll get the idea...
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British artist Metronomy is everything I hate. Weird phase changes, disjointed rhythms, school of Bloc Party vocals and plodding choruses--there's just something non-intuitive about his style that really rubs me the wrong way. Which is unfair, as I should have no trouble loving an English dude whose album is called Nights Out. Luckily, dance great Kris Menace came along and turned the original trainwreck into one of my favorite songs of all time. His masterful remix embodies two of my all-time favorite elements: the sad-song-you-can-dance-to paradox, and tactile synths--the segmented, electronic swoon that begins at 00:14 sounds like nothing more than very, very, very cold bubbles.
I am eating up everything Yes Giantess and Fear of Tigers these days. The former is a Boston quartet and the latter are a bunch of London boys. The soaring quality I'm starting to associate with the work of Fear of Tigers ratchets up the Michael Jackson intensity of Jan Rosenfeld's vocals and will probably make it into heavy party prep rotation for me.
For a long time I thought this band was a Hype Machine hoax. Only two songs, a remix by and a remix of, ever showed up in a search and I could find no information about their label or plans to release an album. Turns out they're just an Australian band fronted by someone named Anne Booty and you can buy them on iTunes now. But this song, even a year later, still makes me want to make out dirty on top of a pinball machine in a poorly-lit highway bar, so fair play to Ms. Booty and the fine folk(s) of Ju.Do, whoever they may be.
I saw Little Boots with Dragonette on Saturday in Seattle so I had to get some of the Canadian electropopsters' music on here. Michael Di Francesco is part of Van She and this is his (expectedly) euphoric, disco take on one of the better tracks from Dragonette's most recent album Fixin to Thrill.
A shameless plug for Fyfe Dangerfield and his ebullient brand of life-affirming pop music. The Monarchy remix stretches the original to almost twice its length and takes it from a sun-drenched morning bedroom to, well...the afternoon. Truth be told I don't think this song could ever be anything but sunny despite its flirtations at the beginning and the halfway mark with a more dance club aesthetic. It's hard to imagine that any more strings than Dangerfield originally intended wouldn't be overkill but the stubborn insistence of that vaguely dirty bassline provides balance and a (literal) undercurrent of darkness to the pop soaring above.
I'm a huge fan of British teen drama Skins (for those who aren't familiar, basically a smarter, grittier, druggier O.C. with a killer soundtrack) so this will no doubt be the first of many songs I post from that show, given that their fourth season is only halfway done. This remix has a great slow build and crescendo and a subtly triumphant feel (as opposed to something by, say, Fear of Tigers) that puts me in mind of Dan Deacon's most recent, beautiful, album Bromst...from which there are, unfortunately, no remixes. I love how this track manages to be both static and in motion, epic without being overbearing.
Contrary to what it says directly below this, this post brought to you by Amanda.
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