This is a collaboration between two of the earliest acts featured on this blog: a song by week 19’s Kings of Convenience, as remixed by week 5’s Four Tet.
As with many successful collaborations, it seems like an unlikely one at first. Kings of Convenience made their name as an acoustic folk duo whose whisper-quiet harmonies and gentle guitars brought to mind Simon and Garfunkel, if Simon and Garfunkel were really into samba and had ingested a fair amount of melatonin. Four Tet, meanwhile, is an electronic act whose music is often frantic, choppy, and eclectic.
But of course the best collaborations are often ones in which the contributors have opposite yet complementary strengths. The two acts come at musical beauty from very different angles, and the result of their collaboration is one of my favourite remixes of all-time.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The contrast between the main loop (a frantic, double-time chopped sample from the original song) and the drum sample (a slow, so-laid-back-it’s-horizontal drum loop from a Dexter Wansel track from 1976.
2. I love how at 1:52, Four Tet isolates two vowel sounds that fall on the downbeat of consecutive bars: an “I” and an “ee”. The two different vowel sounds and the alternating major-minor harmonies is another fantastic contrast presented by this remix.
3. One final contrast with less than 30 seconds remaining in the song: the percussion finally cuts out, leaving only a soft guitar and smooth strings behind. Like the smooth aftertaste of a hard drink.
Recommended listening activity:
Drizzling a bit of soy sauce on vanilla ice cream. (Seriously. It’s good.)