Earlier this year you may remember that I posted an astoundingly good remix by Max Cooper of the Poppy Ackroyd track Paper which I described as a ‘calm banger’. Now it’s role reversal time because Poppy has re-worked Max’s track Lovesong, which is the closing track of Max’s album One Hundred Billion Sparks Remixed, out now.
Max’s original was a gentle electronic comedown, as if the doors were closing and everyone was going home. Yet it seems that someone had left a grand piano in the room and Poppy was there hiding, waiting for her chance to sit in front of the keys and coat the track in subtle pitter-patter rhythms as if it was raining outside, the small splashes in the forming puddles creating something bigger. I’ve always thought that if you are going to do a remix you should very much leave your mark on the music – the new track should be identifiably the work of the remixer - and for anyone familiar with Poppy’s work you’ll hear her signature all over this lovely piece.
Max Cooper - Lovesong (Poppy Ackroyd Remix)
Poppy Ackroyd is a classically trained pianist, violinist, producer, and composer, whose last work, Resolve, was a thing of absolute beauty. If you’re a fan of calming but never dull modern ambient / classical recordings and you haven’t heard the album yet it comes hugely recommended – I’d put it up there with the likes of Nils Frahm and Max Richter. It almost made my Top 10 albums of 2018 list.
Now comes news of Resolve Reimagined, a remix project of the original record featuring reworked versions of the tracks from the likes of Hauschka, Ben Lukas Boysen, and Hidden Orchestra released on the 22nd February 2019. The opening piece Paper has been re-engineered by Max Cooper and it’s hugely impressive. If ever there was such a thing as a calm banger, this is it. Cooper retains much of the looping piano and beats and clicks of the original but then adds extra electronic layers, pulses and small effects that leave the track in a very different space from where it started. I don’t feature many remixes on Breaking More Waves, but where like this they truly add something, they deserve to be listened to. Immersive stuff.
Poppy is on tour in February including a number of UK shows, which finish in her home town of Brighton on 22nd February.
Poppy Ackroyd - Paper (Max Cooper Remix)
