12 inch arrived just before my lunchtime whilst working from home. A welcome relief from the tedium, and great to hear these mixes for the first time direct from the vinyl.
The track has slowly grown on me, but the original mix still sounds very demo-like. Barney's mix is by far the best mix, despite not including quite all the lyrics and replacing some with the vocoder (which I love). Kind of a very cool hybrid of an extended mix and a dub mix. Love it, and as mentioned, the instrumental version also sounds fab.
Steve's mix is also great, but has more of a 90s Motiv8 remix feel to it, so it's all about the Barney mix for me. I like that the previously released shorter version of Barney's mix isn't a straightforward edit, but rather a different arrangement of the same mix with a slower build up - although the full mix is much better and just gets straight into the beats.
Interesting that both mixes feature bass guitar melody lines that are barely audible or non-existent in the single mix. Both remixes expose sound and rhythmic layers tucked away on the original mix that I hadn't picked out before - the light electronic tom drums, and "Hooky" bass riff (which is in the single mix just before the first chorus if you listen carefully) for example.
When you look back and think of all the acts they've produced or remixed over the years, it's amazing they've not thought to do their own individual band member remixes of their singles like this before, and I really love the concept. Who knows, maybe if Hooky had been encouraged to do his own mixes of their singles from 'True Faith' onwards for each 12" it might have made him less resentful when his bass was less prominent in the album versions.
Barney's done some wonderful remixes over the years (ACR's 'Wont Stop Loving You' and Years & Years' 'Sanctify' to name just two). This one is up with his very best.
An above average song, but a wonderful 12" release with some fab remixes.
Edited by user 13 November 2020 17:12:03(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified
