Sydney based singer / songwriter Jack Colwell first emerged late last year with his debut EP ‘Only When Flooded Could I Let Go’, and a year on this latest download-only EP ‘When The World Explodes’ offers up a remix companion piece. One thing’s for sure – Colwell must have some serious connections, as he’s managed to enlist the remix skills of an impressive cast of producers here to rework tracks from his debut. Indeed, the six remixes collected here see Colwell’s avante-pop tracks being radically deconstructed from their origins, with consistently fascinating and diverse results.
HEALTH open proceedings with a reworking of ‘Don’t Cry Those Tears’ that sees things recast into a forbidding landscape of crashing industrial percussion and pulsing kickdrums that gradually ventures out into a forest of bright, glittering synth arpeggios as Colwell’s lower tones duet with Jake Duszic’s angelic backing harmonies, in a seamless collaboration that feels almost effortless in its execution. Ash Koosha’s remix of ‘Far From View’ ventures into icier territory as wavering walls of massed synths swell against glitchy textures in what’s easily the most prog-tinged moment here, noodling synth lead and all, before Marcus Whale’s remix of the same track places Colwell’s brooding vocal at the centre of the track as eerie phased electronics and mournful strings build a sense of ominous atmosphere that’s disrupted by the rattlesnake-like sudden strike of sparse broken rhythms.
If the aforementioned track contains one of the most tangible presences from Colwell here, elsewhere, Fennesz’s reworking of ‘Don’t Cry Those Tears’ recasts things into exquisite sci-fi blues as Colwell’s rich vocals spiral against a spectral backdrop of woozily treated textures, the dreamily chiming guitar chords solidifying into a powerful crunch as airy synths trail at the edges of the mix, adding a sense of cold grandeur. As you’d expect, there’s nothing approaching a dull moment here, with the impressive cast of remixers operating on all cylinders throughout.
