I have this little seven-year old girl at home, and when she is not watching Scooby-Doo or arguing with her mother about brushing her hair, she is doing craft things. Paper, cartons, wrapping materials, glue and scissors are valuable commodities in our house because as soon as they are left for more than a matter of seconds, they have become 3D pictures, animals, house, boxes, cases, weapons, rockets, snowflakes, and just about anything else that can be made by cutting, sticking and adding glitter. Of course the downside of this creativity is that I have to clean, scrape, hoover, tidy and more often than not….’file’ the finished pieces in the recycling after an appropriate amount of time.
London producer Romare is one of the up and coming men of the moment in the dance music game. He blasted onto the scene with his debut EP Meditations on Afrocentrism: where he mixed African rhythms with modern electronic and house music to brilliant effect to produce some huge, ambitious and interesting tunes. More recently he’s remixed indie-darlings Alt-J track Breezeblocks.
Kodaline of course (I say of course because by now everybody’s heard of them, right?) are the Dublin four-piece who have similarly burst on the scene with emotive, intelligent indie-rock (some people writing this might have said ‘Elbow-ed their way onto the scene, you know, like Elbow, because they sound um, a bit….like…… Elbow. ? – I’ll think I’ll skip it), coupled with fantastic videos – really, check out the high hopes video (brilliant), and are already regulars on national networks and blogs everywhere.
Romare has taken this track, cut it into tiny pieces, showed it some classic Chicago house and a box of tricks, and has made what is a complete new and different track. It’s in the classic style of the remixer’s, in that he’s taken a great song, and made another great song, which is almost totally stand-alone from the original. The insistent high-hat sound over which the chords and vocal scraps are arranged could almost come out of Hacienda, while it kicks into a deep, almost muddy sound, with (punches air) hand claps. as the track continues you begin to realise this is almost a timeline of house music with its references and tricks. It shows that Romare is a real creative talent.
I don’t know what he’s like at building rockets, or boxes or 3D pictures, but I do know that, like my little girl, he’s a dab hand at cutting, sticking and adding glitter. And best of all, there’s no tidying involved.
