Pitchfork

Fucking relax already. Yes, the Luomo mix is awesome, better than you think, but we gotta talk these other ones first. If there's a theme to speak of, the remixes want to systematize Black Dice, organize the shifty track without destroying whatever essence each remixer believes is at its heart. Forcefield membro ZZ Pot takes the precious noodling and gives us back an extreme Beaches and Canyons rendition: full-bodied noise, pulsing and throbbing and confident through its seven movements. Early on Pot goes double-time for "Cone Toaster" appeal, then scales back to handle the original's quieter moments. The contrast sets up his Gregorian chant in haunted house segment, which sets up his Gregorian chant in haunted boat ride segment-- the monks step in the murk, then moan in embarrassment.

I like Tim DFA's remix, but there's not much to explain: the track sounds like a DFA remix of Black Dice, and sometimes those live drum sounds are enough. Where Pot played up the Dice's chaos, Goldsworthy fights the track head-on-- he wants a jam off that guitar stutter, and he finds it. From there that rhythmically and musically disorganized hook isn't built on so much as built around: overlaid chords, a single-note bassline under't, bird sounds. If "Smiling Off" is a gloriously unorganized 1, d000-piece puzzle, Goldsworthy is merely assembling them into the song on the puzzle box cover-- a dancey Excepter? I admit I haven't heard their new one yet.

Finally. Vlad Delay's gonna get "psych-house" for this one, though I do believe the circumstances of the remix (i.e. hey, this is Black Dice) bring him into the Villalobos/Luciano/Murcof/Terrestre world more than his own volition. But so you know: This is the best psych-house track ever made, and my favorite DFA release of 2005. The drum programming has those sudden change-ups that upped Vocalcity's suspense quotient on the second-to-second level-- lots of swoops, drop-offs and deceptive mid-measure back-to-grooves. Delay might be the track's ideal remixer: He's not looking to control the music (DFA), or revere it (ZZ), just outrun it-- at every turn his characteristically rubbery groove risks breakdown, and the effect's clearly intentional. Delay could have tracked the song's droned vocals to fit his groove (Goldsworthy did, no problem), but instead he lets them peak out the beat, overwhelming the rhythm and developing a spirit of danger I never associated with the Luomo project. Yeah, you can dance to it all right; you can put your head in a lion's mouth too.

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