A remix contest was formed to elicit talent and numerous international acts were brought in for remixing duties in the development of this 17 track remix album for Japanese artist Cokiyu’s second album ‘Your Thorn‘. While the originals are subtle dreamlike compositions using Max/MSP in conjunction with voice, woodwind and percussion, the remixes bring in a range of interpretations that create differing aesthetic sensibilities. Opening with Opiate’s rework of ‘Round in Fog’ sees a more metallic and starker feel placed on the material, voice kept intact if not amplified in it’s whimsical beauty and rising above the clutter and stutter beats, with original percussion making brief entrances. ‘Recall‘ remixed by Girl with The Gun gets a deep bass and slap beat treatment with vocals high in the mix. The peppered bass beat attack with finger claps and effected vocals of Shigeto’s version of ‘Drag the Beast’s is an infectious groove number. 1000 names give ‘Your Thorn’ a fairly tame techno remix with 4/4 structure, builds, synth chords, effects and fairly standard kooky noises. Given there are 4 remixes of the track ‘Your Thorn’, the arguably more nuanced being the Geskia & Pawn spaced out mashed hip hop, glitch and vocals effected out of context as well as the version by Polyphonic Parachute which adds guitar and heightens the dreamlike nature by making it even more melodically abundant into a kind of sonic honeypot for the lush ambient mindset.
Other notable tracks on the album are ‘Gloomy’ reworked by Vieo Abiungo who really takes the title of the track to heart and creates a growing complex doom with the instrumental and studio tool mastery he so aptly demonstrates on his albums. Remote Viewers ‘See the sun’ takes the deep electronic ambience to one side and starts with simple guitar and minimal tonal electronics with the vocals entering simply accompanied with bass warmth and the track kept quite stark highlighting moments of warmth. Also ‘Drag the Beast‘ remixed by NETWORKS becomes almost a symphonic pop number with vocal accompaniment and a cymbal race crescendo impatience that brings to bear waves of instrumental rushes. Overall the remixes add dimensionality to Cokiyu’s ‘Your Thorn’ and while as a whole it hangs like many a remix album, with insufficient continuity to present a coherent listening experience, it has quite a number of high quality mixes to distract the ear from this danger.
Innerversitysound
