Luxx Remixed
Luxxury: “Sweet and Vicious: The Remixes”
Released May 22, 2007 on Nolita Records (NOL011)
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Hot on the heels of their critically acclaimed debut Rock and Roll is Evil (”4.5 stars: one of the finds of the year”), San Francisco’s Luxxury return with Sweet and Vicious: The Remixes. The album features all-new remixes of the songs on Evil by an international roster of up-and-coming producers from the UK to France, and from Brooklyn to Hollywood.
The foreign disco affair begins with London producer Janus’s minimal techno take on “Drunk (London/Berlin Remix)”, which evokes the Berlin sound of Ellen Allien and the Kompakt label. Vancouver-based blog darlings All Night Dance Party kick things up a notch with “Sweet and Vicious (More Vicious Than Sweet Remix),” a guaranteed dancefloor filler that might just turn you Canadian. But if it doesn’t, fellow Britsh Columbian production duo Low Pressure System are sure to seal the deal with their splendid dance-rock remix of “Understood.” Meanwhile, French (as in “from France”) duo Toulouse Fight Club blend DFA 1979 with LCD Soundsystem in “Drunk (Toulouse Fight Club Remix)” with glorious rock-meets-acid-synth-squelch results.
The American response starts with Brooklyn producer (and part-time Luxxury member) Devin Dirt. The term “banger” was invented with his Machine Punk’d version of “Rock and Roll is Evil (Fat Elvis Remix)” in mind. DJ Barbeau, co-founder of L.A. electro legends Dirty Sanchez, strips “Sex With Rich People (Lucky Synth Remix)” to its sleazy Moroder core, while SF’s hardest working electro-house DJ Audrock gives “Drunk (Loaded Remix)” a dark, rainy night ambience.Luxxury singer/producer Baron von Luxxury’s “Drunk (Lovesick Vocoders at Night Version)” and “Sweet and Vicious (Exxpensive Re-Edit)” both pay homage to the classic extended remixes of the Duran Duran and Depeche Mode 80’s: keeping the original song largely intact but turning the dance-o-meter to 11. By contrast, 21-year-old Bay Area wunderkind Johnatron has produced nearly complete re-inventions of the original songs with “Sweet and Vicious (Short Circuit Remix)” and “Drunk (Groundpounder Dub).” Watch this kid, he’s going far.
Baron von Luxxury is a producer who has done remixes for Scissors for Lefty, Dirty Sanchez, CSS, Robots in Disguise, and Glass Candy. He is also a member of Disco Workout, a DJ/production team who have a monthly residency in San Francisco and a daily updated MP3 blog at www.discoworkout.com.
Track Listing:
1. “Drunk (Janus London/Berlin Remix)”
2. “Sweet and Vicious (All Night Dance Party’sMore Vicious Than Sweet Remix)”
3. “Rock and Roll is Evil (Devin Dirt’s Fat Elvis Remix)”
4. “Drunk (Lovesick Vocoders at Night Version)”
5. “Sweet and Vicious (Johnatron’s Short Circuit Remix)”
6. “Drunk (Beeper City’s Groundpounder Dub)”
7. “Sex With Rich People (Barbeau’s Lucky Synth Remix)”
8. “Drunk (Toulouse Fight Club Remix)”
9. “Understood (Low Pressure System Remix)”
10. “Sweet and Vicious (Exxpensive Re-edit)”
11. “Drunk (Audrock’s Loaded Remix)”
Download now @ Amazon.com
Download now @ Itunes
Reviews + Free MP3s from the album are here:
Boule a Facettes
MissingToof
Graff Giraph
La New Shit
Chris Walker Versus
SF Scene
About the Remixers:
Janus
1. “Drunk (Janus London/Berlin Remix)”
Janus is the remix and production name of London DJ/producer Jamie D Winter, a resident at London’s (in)famous electro clubs Computer Blue, Trailer Trash, and Stereo Suicide. Janus’s remix of “Drunk” disintegrates the original song parts into small fragments of sound before expanding, distorting, and treating the fragments individually. The result is a complex structure that, although very different from the original sound, still holds the general feeling of the song; especially the feelings of loss and movement.
Sounds a bit like: Ellen Allien, minimal techno, Berlin at 3am, small kittens eating dynamite.
More about this artist:www.myspace.com/jamiedwinter
All Night Dance Party:
2. “Sweet And Vicious (More Vicious Than Sweet Edit)”
All Night Dance Party are an electronic duo from Vancouver, CA. Their vocoderriffcally aggressive “nothing-is-too-poppy” style, has made them favorites of Big Stereo, Acid Girls and many other of the major electronic blogs. ANDP gives Luxxury’s synthpop song “Sweet and Vicious” an abrasive kick, growly saw-basslines, and turns it into a dancefloor banger, harness a true “stuck in your head all night (dance party)” quality. Little known fact: ANDP is a side project of Felix Cartal.
Sounds a bit like:Depeche Mode, Microkorg madness, cupcakes, pillow fights.
More about this artist:http://www.myspace.com/allnightdancepartyband, http://www.myspace.com/felixcartal
Devin Dirt:
3. “Rock and Roll is Evil (Fat Elvis Remix)”
Brooklyn producer Devin Dirt combines industrial techno with dirty house “and serves it with a hot cup of fuck you.” The emininently quotable Devin goes on to explain: “This track is dedicated to Fat Elvis whose morbid overindulgence and total lack of shame were of great inspiration.” Devin was one of the earliest members of Luxxury and co-wrote “Sweet and Vicious” with Baron von Luxxury.
Sounds a bit like:Machine Punk, Nine Inch Nails, vitriol, sarcastic sex.
More about this artist:http://www.myspace.com/devindirt
http://www.blackvanrecords.com
Baron von Luxxury:
4. “Drunk (Lovesick Vocoders at Night Version)”
10: “Sweet and Vicious (Exxpensive Re-edit)”
Is it easier or harder to remix your own song? If you’re Baron von Luxxury, it’s liable to take two and a half years and destroy several hard drives in the process. “Devin (Dirt) and I originally did this remix to take with us to Miami for Winter Music Conference 2005,” says von Luxxury. “Devin sampled the original song with his MPC and made this cool riff, so I built a basic arrangement around that. Then we went back and forth adding parts. But both our hard drives died and all we had left was a low quality MP3 of it.” For the next two years, BvL tried to rebuild the song, but “it wasn’t until I started hearing the remixes coming in from other people for this record that I finally had an incentive to bite the bullet and redo the whole song from scratch.”Baron von Luxxury is a songwriter, producer, and a Russian jew with a penchant for pretentious words like “penchant.” In addition to the band Luxxury, BvL is a producer who has done remixes for Scissors for Lefty, Dirty Sanchez, CSS, Robots in Disguise, Glass Candy. He is also a member of The Workout, a DJ/production team with a daily updated MP3 blog at www.discoworkout.com. BvL’s remix for Scissors for Lefty’s “Ghetto Ways” will be released on Eenie Meanie and Rough Trade Records on June 12.
Sounds a bit like:Duran Duran, Devo, celebrity nipple slips, chasing a girl named Anna von B. around the discos of Europe (true story).
More about this artist: www.myspace.com/baronvonluxxury,
http://www.luxxury.com
Johnatron
5. “Sweet and Vicious (Johnatron’s Short Circuit Remix)”
6. “Drunk (Beeper City’s Groundpounder Dub)”
Hailing from the East Bay Area, specifically the lush utopian climes of Fremont, Johnatron and Beeper City are two alter egos of decidedly ego-free 21 year-old whiz-kid John Sagouspe. For the Sweet and Vicious remix, “I was experimenting with some new analog equipment, the Roland Jupiter series and my sequential Pro One. I was trying to find a way to preserve the new wave feeling of the original and add my signature sequenced basslines to the remix.” For “Drunk”, Johnatron began his remix one year ago, but “I kept losing the a capella, so I decided to make a dub.” The results are complete reworkings of the original songs, that somehow retains the essential DNA of those tracks. Johnatron is also a founding member of “The Workout”, a DJ collective in San Francisco and an mp3 blog.
Sounds like:Yaz, The Chemical Brothers, Stuart Price, Baudelaire, Lacoste flip flops.
More about this artist:http://www.myspace.com/millieguamhttp://www.discoworkout.com
Barbeau
7. “Sex With Rich People (Barbeau’s Lucky Synth Remix)”
LA-based producer, DJ, and musician, Barbeau is a founding member in electro-rock Dirty Sanchez (Hypnotic Recordings), and has played with Duran Duran, Fannypack, Miss Kittin, Moby, Les Rhythmes Digitales, Cassius and many more. Barbeau’s Moroderrifc remix came together during the Dirty Sanchez/Luxxury Tour in 200. “I’d heard the song on the CD and live a few times and had imagined my own version in my head. From there it was just a matter of putting together all the pieces and making it a reality. The rest is history.”
Sounds like:1981, Giorgio Moroder, white leather Barbarella boots, Really Rich Italian Satanists.
More about this artist:www.myspace.com/barbeaumusic
www.iambarbeau.com
Toulouse Fight Club:
8. “Drunk (Toulouse Fight Club Remix)”
Toulouse Fighting Club is J.B Casini and Damien Louchet, two French DJ/producers, who actually live in Toulouse, France. J.B Casini is member of the Electroluxe family while Damien Louchet is member of the Holmes DJ Club. The duo approached BvL after Luxxury performed in London last fall and asked whether they could take a shot at a remix. The result begins as a stripped down, simplified take on the original that explores and exploits the core human components (vocals, bass, live drums). But gradually the robots join in, and before long they’ve demolished everything in a french acid frenzy.
Sounds like:LCD Soundsystem, naked people, acid, croissants.
More about this artist: www.myspace.com/theholmesdjclub, http://www.myspace.com/dicklaurentisdead
Low Pressure System:
9. “Understood (Low Pressure System Remix)”
Low Pressure System is a Vancouver based production duo consisting of industry veteran RC Lair and producer Alex DeGrace (also of Male Model Machine). Together they focus on hard hitting beats and filthy basslines, both in remix work and original productions. ”We wanted to maintain the rock/indie feel of the original, while adding punchy drums and bass hooks. This approach worked well, and with the use of some effects and edits the track came together into a cohesive whole we feel well represents our sound.”
Sounds like:Black Sabbath eating Kraftwerk, the 1980 Olympic boycott, a British Columbian Necktie.
More about this artist:http://myspace.com/lps808
Audrock:
11. “Drunk (Audrock’s Loaded Remix)”
Chad “Audrock” Liscinsky began DJing jungle and D’n’B in Los Angeles at the age of 16 before moving to Arizona where he added promoting and opening the area’s first electronic dance/hip hop record store to his CV. After getting a degree in music production in Boston, he landed in San Francisco where he has become one of the city’s hottest electro DJs and the host “Loaded”, a wildly successful monthly party. Of his remix of “Drunk”, Chad says “it started out completely different - I began with the intention of an all out rock-tech approach,” which he completed and decided to abandon completely. Basically, its a little moody- synth rock jam which are a combination styles i hold dear to my heart.
Sounds like: Lionel Ritchie with a sledgehammer, Thunderdome, the perfect Disco Bloodbath Aftermath.
More about this artist: www.myspace.com/audrock1
MORE INFO:
Download now @ Amazon.com
Download now @ Itunes
“Sweet and Vicious: The Remixes” one sheet (300K PDF)
Hi-Res Album cover art (1800 pixels wide, 4.6 meg .jpeg)
Medium-Res Album cover art (1000 pixels wide, 500k .jpeg)
Lo-Res Album cover art (400 pixels wide, 192 .jpeg)
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