"For the most part, the duo's voices are left intact, but layered atop sounds far removed from the original record's arch, deconstructed take on dance music. On Molina's discomfitingly sexy version of "Roll the dice," Stoltenberg and Motzfeldt seem to have taken a wrong turn off the high street and into one of those crusty dive bars that only plays hypnotic European dub; the song's lyrics, so embodied and affirmative on the original, suddenly feel ominous,"
"If it can sometimes feel like "alternative" pop is simply real pop music that's kind of unfinished-like, music that uses avant-garde texture or structure to hide a dearth of coherent ideas- Big city life EDITS proves that Stoltenberg and Motzfeldt's songs have strong bones. The Copenhagen singer Fine plays "A thousand lies" straight: It's just her voice atop a loose, jazz-folk arrangement, and it sounds like a lost cut from the Norman Fucking Rockwell! sessions."
Big city life EDITS collects 14 reworks by 18 acts that repurpose Smerz material into new sonic contexts. The duo's vocals often remain intact while producers layer them over sounds far removed from the original record's deconstructed dance framework. Molina's take on "Roll the dice" turns the song toward hypnotic European dub and an ominous, dive-bar mood. An electroclash reinterpretation of "Imagine this" balances kitsch and glamour. Fine's version of "A thousand lies" strips the track to voice and loose jazz-folk arrangement, evoking a languid, cinematic pop sensibility and demonstrating the songs' structural strength.
Read at Pitchfork
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]