REVIEW: Mogwai, Kicking A Dead Pig - Mogwai Songs
Remixed
(Jetset)
- Tim Mohr
This is an incredible package: a double CD (or limited-edition, triple, colored vinyl) containing stellar remixes of Mogwai by a dozen different mixers including names like Alec Empire, u-ziq, Kid Loco, and My Bloody Valentine.
Scotland's Mogwai craft dramatic, wind-swept instrumentals, often building from a light, single-instrument-breeze to a full, wind-tunnel-guitar-howl over the course of a song. Their music mimics the structure of life, metaphorically juxtaposing experiences of revealed beauty with moments of personal anguish, finding quiet resolutions amidst the noise of anxiety and depression.
Though Mogwai songs have a sense of inevitability, the addition of beats (along with a host of other effects used by the remixers) gives immediacy to the progression of their songs.
Take the remix of "Tracy" by France's Kid Loco. An understated atmosphere of sorrow still envelops the track, but Kid Loco's slow, trippy percussions offer a buoy in a sea of sadness--even as his dubby echo-effects emphasize the watery surroundings. This is remixing at its best.
The Hood remix of "Like Herod" loops a spooky keyboard line to create a feel similar to the haunted dancehall of Witchman. Max Tundra reverses the structure of "Helicon 2" by starting with a burst of white noise and then moving into what had been the long introductory phase of the original.
"Summer" gets a drum'n'bass rework in Klute's "Weird Winter Remix." The remix sticks to the minimalist school of drum'n'bass but gains immeasurably from the interesting pieces of Mogwai material inserted between the drums and the bass.
Some of the songs have been more seriously altered, also with excellent results: Surgeon makes of "Mogwai Fear Satan" a six-minute, single-note, mock symphony, substituting the whir of a hundred warped computers for the crescendo of an orchestra.
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine takes liberties as well. MBV are often credited (by critics) as the most significant influence on Mogwai--and this seems to be reinforced both by the way Kevin Shields understands the structural and logical extremities of "Fear Satan" and by the way he takes the song to these outer limits with such a deft touch. The My Bloody Valentine remix is a sixteen minute voyage to hell and back: Shields lets the tension of the song build for five minutes, releases a barrage of noise, then--just as the noise threatens to overwhelm--creates a quiet denouement. Then he repeats the cycle a second time but this time leaves the listener craving a final resolution.
Fellow Glasgow residents Arab Strap put together a Stars On 45-style medley of Mogwai songs, running through several distinct musical genres in the process. They start with a fairly Big, complicated, David Holmes-esque beat, segue into dark house, and fade into jumpy hi-hat patterns borrowed from drum'n'bass.
Of all the remixers, only u-ziq proves incapable of not sounding too much like himself. His signature distorted percussions deprive his mix of "Fear Satan" of any Mogwai personality. Even Alec Empire--not exactly "Mr. Subtlety"--manages to add his (also trademark) frenetic, scatter-fire breakbeats and retain something of a Mogwai atmosphere.
Kicking A Dead Pig succeeds in a way that similar recent projects from High Llamas (_Lollo Rosso), Low (_owL) or even Primal Scream (_Echodek) do not. Granted, the cinematic soundscapes of Mogwai make excellent foundations for remixes due to their sprawling, a-traditional structures and hold-your-breath sense of timing and dynamics. But the success of Kicking A Dead Pig is not limited to remixers who only managed not to screw up the original songs too much. On the contrary: with few exceptions, the remixers have altered the songs in significant ways, put them in completely different contexts, or drastically changed arrangements in a manner that should be interesting to fans of Mogwai and to fans of the remix artists.
