Intimacy Remixed
Listening to the 2009 remix of Bloc Party’s third studio album *Intimacy*, it becomes pretty evident the band recorded the 2008 album with the intention of leaving some room for a handful of their best DJ and producer friends to deconstruct the songs and reassemble them with dance floor magic. The party starts with a facelifted “Ares” that’s vastly different from the album cut — the Villains remix smoothes over the angularity of the original with driving beats, distorted tones and a bombastic bass. The Mogwai remix of “Biko” infuses layered guitar lines and atmospheric flutters of synth notes that play soothingly before allocated bursts of drum machines come in to recall the drum ‘n’ bass craze of the late-20th century. The John B Remix of “Trojan Horse” explodes with throbbing blips and beats to inadvertently approximate a battle between two old school video games, but it’s the Armand Van Helden remix of “Signs” that stands out like an arm wrestling match between Daft Punk and Justice with its wonky tones, electropunk abrasiveness and some kind of magical effect that makes the vocals sound submerged in the waters of Atlantis.
In its original form, Intimacy already sounded like an overstuffed remix of a rock record, but here we go with another attempt at making it any good.
After leaving 2007's A Weekend in the City firmly intact, angular rock quartet Bloc Party revisit the concept of the remix album, enlisting another set of highly acclaimed musicians, DJs, and producers to work their dancefloor magic on the group's third LP, 2009's Intimacy.
What do we expect from a remix album? What is it supposed to do? Should it be just a restatement of the facts, the bare bones of the original work? Or...