Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated release he thinks we need to know about. This week it’s kinda nothing but it’s Jamie XX's remix of Glasser’s "Tremel" from the song's 12-inch Listen to it and read Schnipper’s thoughts after the jump.
I stood on the side of the stage for The XX. #bragging. Whatever. It was awesome. They are not slept on. A huge mass of people, five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand, I have no idea how many people filled up the arena immediately surrounding the Sony Bloggie stage. It was 3PM. Kids in the audience doubled up and crossed their arms, human XXs. One girl up front played every bit of song minutiae on her body. Everyone sang along, had their moment, a collective conscious the same way a riot starts but with the inverse physical response. Same number of people. There’s no underselling the wonder of seeing so many love what you love. I am a fan. Can’t say it enough. I love loving stuff!
That night I went to Beauty Bar to see Jamie XX DJ for an hour. Towards the end of his set, after a kid had knocked my beer out of my hand and sprayed it everywhere and some girl got mad at me (not my fault), he played The XX’s remix of Florence and the Machine’s “You’ve Got the Love.” It’s basically a cover, two step drums refigured over pretty harp, nervous xylophone, bubble bass and deep piano. Playing on CD-Js, at the end of the song Jamie looped a bit of it, quick drum and vocal snippet. Oh my god, it’s the best thing you’ve ever heard. Sunday morning I got up to do work in my hotel room and listened to the song on repeat for an hour.
That night, after Lollapalooza, I went back to the hotel to watch HBO on a flatscreen. But I stayed too long for Arcade Fire and I missed Entourage. It was just the credits, white type on a black screen, and some pained, mostly acapella, woman singing stylishly. I couldn’t place it. I used Shazam on my phone to search. It was Skream’s “Let’s Get Ravey” remix of La Roux’s “Going in for the Kill.” That’s a good song.
The next night, last night, I came back home and went out to buy some toilet paper and eggs. They were playing a song I vaguely recognized at the store. A man asked his girlfriend if she recognized it. She did. Her sister had played it for them a year ago, then he heard a mostly acapella remix of it. He got progressively more excited, moving toward her from the door to the cash register, standing next to her and speaking to her profile while she paid. They looked pretty normal.
So what I’m saying is that maybe this post-whatever electronic pop texture plus lady vocals is maybe bound for glory. And I am cool with that. I have extremely strong feelings about the Glasser album, which I will tell you about soon, and I am pretty sure Jamie XX is the future of all music. They crossed paths briefly on his remix of her song “Tremel.” It’s a bit more bumpy than Skream’s La Roux treatment, or his dismantling and reassembly of Florence, but turns Glasser’s voice robotic, buffeted by a host of bloops and mechanics. And then, towards the end, he drops out and lets her voice stream smoothly like it never fully does on the original. You know how the current can feel like the breathing of watery gold and then it melts back into an extremely pleasant sub-strain of vocal house music. But for that moment, that bit of taking off the mask, it’s as if he’s finagled an organizational position more than one as a remixer. But it’s like the clutter was made of gold and he origiami’d it into a bird. It’s worth the same and now it’s less natural, but boy is it impressive with wings.
