Lisztomania — Phoenix (Shook remix)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGbVaJ5kl7s

Shook (one of my favorite remix artists) takes Phoenix's Lisztomania and makes it more French, more disco-poppy, more dance hall, more syncopated and synth-y, more sparse and reverb, stripping it down to its minimalist essentials, the choralized vocals; it builds back up a bassline, a clav synth, and claps, and pretty much nothing else. And you get this portrait of a song which has been torn open, ribs exposed, and you can see how it works; the song swells properly as the bridge leads into the chorus; the bassline mirrors the repetitions, and the song trudges along nn-ts, nn-ts like a good disco song, connecting another remix bridge between time periods, dragging the past out into the light, examining the stuff Phoenix is made of.

Shook — Emancipator (Mobb Deep X Sigur Ros)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVEwemk-TRU

Sigur Ros has never quite done the trick for me; I need my music to have driving rhythms, even if it's ambient; nothing downtempo for me. When I first heard this around a year ago, I thought it was merely a remix some Sigur Ros song; when it kicks into high gear around 1:01, it is transfixing, chopping and filtering and switching between vocals and chants and backgrounds, two layers of already indistinct gibberish further removed from context, built into a layered quilt of texture and sound — and then the rap section begins at 2:00, another minute later. The lyrics are unrelated; I love the contrast between the abrasive, violent lyrics and the peaceful backgrounds, mediated by a chopped midtempo beat, made of Sigur Ros but made to fit Mobb Deep. The two artists have never — will never — meet or collaborate, but somebody (Emancipator, here) thought they should, and they were right.