Lemon Jelly's Fred Deakin is clearly a man who understands his Post-Punk movers and shakers. If memory serves, he snuck a track from short-lived Edinburgh heroes The Scars' onto LJ's remix/DJ album a few years years back and now he's back in harness with the ever-vigilant Caroline True for a pair of crucial cusp-of-the-80s remixes.
Fred's 'Impotent Fury' mixes are largely sympathetic affairs. Yes, he adds an urgency and a Ketamined-up bassline to under-rated Mancunian quartet MANICURED NOISE'S wonderful 'Moscow 1980', but he's savvy enough to let the rippling guitar figure and Madness-style horn lines remain. Instead, he ensures the drums are beefed-up and metronomic, getting to the heart of the matter and nailing the beat down with spikes. The result is a glorious, Balearic-influenced spy theme and a dancefloor call to arms that's impossible to ignore.
Fred heads across the Pennines for his second remix, a re-tooling of enduring Sheffield heroes' THE HUMAN LEAGUE'S 'Dignity Of Labour Part 3.' After the edgy intensity of 'Moscow 1980', it's floaty and strange, initially coming over like a acid-tinged dub of Joy Division's 'Exercise One', but then getting seriously floaty and insistent on its' own terms. The keyboard fantails drop in and out, shadowing you and ensuring you look over your shoulder again and again. If it's possible to be disconcerting and mellow all at once, then that's the trick our Fred pulls off to perfection here.
|
Despite its' hip quotient, re-mixing is an art requiring patience, enthusiasm and delicate skill. In the case of both 'Moscow 1980' and 'The Dignity of Labour', Fred Deakin displays both a love of his subject and enough innovation to win through with flying colours. Besides, he's made me want to spend time with my Manicured Noise and Human League back catalogues and that's a sure sign of remix success. Cheers Fred.
(http://www.myspace.com/manicurednoise)
|
