Positive Education - Fergie & Octogen remixes
July 9
Ah, remixes. Such a fraught arena - especially these days when no-one knows how to make money from selling records any more. How can you be sure that the fee you pay to the remixer will be covered by the extra sales? Maybe they'll work for free? It'll be good exposure! (Aspiring producers please note; this is a phrase you will hear relentlessly). What we're dealing with here though is that extra step upward in complexity and stress - the remixing of a classic. What can you do to a classic tune without ruining it? Is it possible to even improve on it?
Let's have a quick blast of the said classic tune:
It seems to me that there are three main ways of approaching it - firstly, you can try to keep the track as close as is reasonably possible to the original, whilst updating it a touch or giving it a slightly different feel. This is generally the most disappointing one for the fan, as you don't really get much new stuff, but it can work well. And one thing I've always thought Positive Education would benefit from would be a new kick drum! The original was one of those boxy, early 90's style unprocessed 909 kicks. You didn't notice them at the time, because that's just how all kicks were - but looking back now, they do sound a touch unsatisfying. Toppy, no real sub pressure. Anyway, the second way is to completely re-imagine the tune - rip it apart, write your own tune, almost unrecognisable from the original. But then you could be remixing anything - surely there should be some acknowledgement in there of the original version's classicness? A bit of a tribute, a nod and a wink? Then lastly we've got the halfway house - try and take some recognisable sounds or riffs from the original and bolt them onto a new tune. To put it bluntly. But it can work.
It's this last approach that Fergie uses in his mix. It's a stripped down, minimal(ish) techno affair, based around a competent but standard kind of groove. It rolls, it's fairly driving in a 3am kind of way, it's fairly bland, then he drops in a sample from the original track for a fill or a build. Woo! Hands in the air! Then back to the groove. Maybe I'm being harsh - the production is tight, and you only need to crank it up to hear how effective it would be in the club - it's certainly not going to be clearing any floors any time soon. But it does feel a touch on the bland side.
On the bland side of things is certainly not a phrase that comes to mind with Marco Bernardi's mix, under his Octogen guise, however, and this is a mix that takes the second approach - it doesn't sound at all like the original. It starts off with a harmonic bassline (you guessed it - it's a minor chord on a 4-bar phrasing. One of those eternal couplings that will never get boring. Gin and tonic, roast beef and yorkshires, minor chords on analogue synths, Amen breaks and raging 170bpm subs. If I ever grow tired of any of these things it's all over) with simple swinging percs and a twiddling riff (minor chord), - reminds me of some of the electro-influenced stuff heard from the likes of The Hacker a few years back - and quickly adds in some emotive string chords and a new vocal sample - but still about positive education. From here it builds up further - some sparkling, ascending chord riffs are thrown into the mix and the bassline is doubled up with a fizzy lead line. If you're thinking this is all starting to sound a little bit trance, you'd be right. There's certainly a hint of that in there. But I don't care. It's genuine, hands in the air stuff, and impossible not to like. Once it hits a plateau at about 3 mins in, it stays there for the next 5 and half minutes without getting boring. Give this clip a whirl and you'll get sucked in too.
The release is due mid-August on Soma. There's also a re-mastered version of the original - I'm not about to start reviewing mastering, but because I am an utter, utter nerd I have A/B'd it with the original version and can tell you it definitely sounds better; crisper, fuller, and obviously in these days of loudness wars, louder, albeit at the cost of some slight definition of the hihats. Does that count as a review? Hm.
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i.d.
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