New Music: Bloc Party: "Hunting for Witches (Ruckus Roboticus remix)"
Bloc Party are releasing this frenzied remix of A Weekend in the City's "Hunting for Witches" as the UK rockers embark on their North American tour. Ohio-based DJ and producer Ruckus Roboticus gives the song a stomping bass beat, and puts a more Halloween-ready twist on the song's witches via eerie synths and croaking horns. It's a busy remix, still squeezing in some agonized guitars and Kele Okereke's sardonic lyrics alongside cleverly selected spoken-word snippets. "We live no longer in the dusky afternoon," comes an English-accented voice reciting a line from Arthur Miller's 1953 play about the Salem witch trials, The Crucible. The play's political resonance when it appeared during the era of McCarthyism dovetails nicely with the Bloc Party song's implicit criticisms of the War on Terror. "Kill your middle-class indecision," Okereke exhorts, a perfect demagogue.
Those in the Chicago area can check out Bloc Party tonight at the Hideout Block Party, a double-dose of fun if you like partying and blocks.
MP3:> Bloc Party: "Hunting For Witches (Ruckus Roboticus Remix)"
[original track from a A Weekend in the City; out now on Vice]