November 30, 2018 - Double Six/Domino Records
Hot off an international tour circuit and in the midst of a BBC Radio 1 Residency, George FitzGerald is rounding out a huge year with a weighty revisit to All That Must Be. Popping round just at the end of November, this is a remix album of memories. Fragments of the original tracks, of distant thoughts, of emotional specks float up as offering from the UK producer and his diverse group of collaborators.
The project begins with a daytime version of ‘Half-Light,’ a similar cut to the original night version, though firmly on the brighter side of the coin. The remixes open up after this with a trimmed down ethereal take on ‘Roll Back’ by Earlham Mystics. This track sets the tone; these remixes go beyond a few tweaks and an artist’s signature slapped on the end. These remixes are interpretive, which is becoming harder to find these days.
Sandunes provides her version of ‘Outgrown’ next, stretching piano lines over power lines along an endless train ride. Paul Woolford a.k.a. Special Request’s version of ‘Half-Light’ comes after, and is a strong track if not somewhat comfortable feeling. It checks all the boxes, but might have benefited from more of the piano chord stabs that appear in the middle, or at least a solid tempo boost. Things get steamy with TOKiMONSTA’s version of ‘Roll Back,’ a club-ready sub-tropic number that’s just short and poppy enough.
Kornél Kovács and Matt Karmil team up on ‘Passing Trains,’ truly a highlight of the project. It’s one of those tracks where you think you like the original until you hear the remix and can never go back. The feeling of being on a train is emphasized with rolling percussion and Doppler effect effects. Emotions are tentatively handed out and snatched back just as quickly. It’s a tease I won’t soon get tired of. DJ Tennis follows with a more emotion-forward take on ‘The Echo Forgets.’ It’s thicker than some of the cuts that come before it but adds needed weight to the center of the project.
HottBoii ToppTallentt DJ Seinfeld throws in a space-breaks version of ‘Burns,’ beginning the “Burns Remix Trilogy.” It’s got elements of space and breaks and feels like floating around in space. DJ Seinfeld is having a huge 2018, and it’s great to see his name on a project like this. Australian transplant HAAi is also having a phenomenal 2018 and her Sci-fi Hi-Fi take on ‘Burns,’ (which we previously covered) is huge, ambitious, and cinematic. As June Lockheart said before,
“My inner adventurer is impressed with the way HAAi real name Teneil Throssell has taken one of the biggest techno songs of the year and respectfully built a specific and quintessentially 20th-Century sound narrative from it. HAAi’s remix (…) feels like those short moments before, during, and after a rocket launches—everything is happening with such great force that time is perceived in slow motion like an ecstatic molasses drop. The pacing of this song suspends us like flies in amber, beautiful and endless in our brevity. Listening, I feel nostalgic for the optimism of the past-future and its dreams of the stars.”
HugeClout BiggestName Moby delivers his interpretation of ‘Burns’ next. It’s a surprising and vulnerable work that we also covered earlier in the year, but stands underwhelming next to HAAi’s performance. This may be why a 9 minute 43 second “non-edited” version exists directly after. It should have taken the “edit” tag for itself and then just been cut from the project altogether. What follows are a couple of other edits, dubs, and extended mixes of ‘Half-Light’, ‘Burns’, and ‘The Echo Forgets.’ All welcome and important aspects of a remix album, but not much to linger on after the project that exists in the first 10 tracks. Those first 10 tracks feel more in line with a standalone project. Though I recognize and know the originals, their reinterpretations and the care that’s been taking in ordering and mastering them cohesively go beyond a mere collection of desperate remixed parts.
If I seem tired or dry in my writing, it’s probably because I am tired and I am dry. It has been quite a year. Quite a year for music. Quite a year for George FitzGerald. Quite a year for many of the remixers on this project. And quite a year for memories. 🍍