A couple years back, Prins Thomas, Norwegian disco deity, DJ'd at Queens' Water Taxi Beach. Water Taxi Beach is not actually a beach, just an empty lot filled with sand trucked in from somewhere—if memory serves, New Jersey. A friend got kicked out for peeing outside, no one was wearing shoes, everyone either dancing under a tent or pressed against the chainlink fence looking at the lights of the east side of Manhattan. Inside the tent, at a DJ booth so makeshift it looked like a stand at a career fair, Prins Thomas played whatever he wanted, which, at some point, was The White Stripes. This was such a striking choice, emptying out his basket of parading disco and pressing the gas on the guitar. People still danced. Though his remix of "Work," by poppy duo Junior Boys, from their upcoming album Dull Beyond Care is less relentless than Jack and Meg's pound and crash, it lives in a similar hemisphere of not dance. "Work it baby" are the lyrics, gruffly spoken, that emerge halfway through the 11-minute track, sticking their wet pointer in the air to check a bad forecast. But, like The White Stripes, it's the guitar that's got the greatest power, snake charming the track until, in the final minute, Prins Thomas fades its multiple incarnations together in favor of jingle bells and hand claps, finding its use and knowing when to discard it, like all the best DJs.
Download: Junior Boys, "Work" (Prins Thomas Remix)