Remix Artist Collective - RAC Vol.2

What’s your view on the remix? Some argue that the song should be left as originally intended and that remixes destroy the original artistic vision. Others would say that a good remix can take a song to new levels, enhancing or expanding into astonishing new territories. Some bloggers simply can’t get enough of remixes, whilst others see them as a blatant attempt at trying to drive traffic to a blog through Hype Machine, with little regard to quality control. Our view is very much somewhere in the middle – we’d certainly never post a remix just to get extra hit-count – but where an artist we like has a remix out and it meets the criteria of adding something of value to the original we will give consideration to posting it. Over the years some brilliant remixes and re-interpretations have produced the likes of Primal Scream’s Loaded (a remix of their song I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have), La Roux’s Skream remix of In for the Kill (stunning in its execution) and the Justice vs Simian track We Are Your Friends.

RAC (Remix Artist Collective) as their name suggests are very much pro-remix, their website leaving you in no doubt about their goals. “We aim to maintain a style of remixing that strays from the “club mix” archetype, creating new incarnations of songs that stem from the original structure, but expand on their genre and musical arrangement.” To prove their point, this week they released RAC Vol 2, an album that re-works tracks from the likes of Delorean, Washed Out, Phoenix and Surfer Blood. There’s enough there to send your typical remixed obsessed blogger into a frenzy and for those of us who like to give these things a little more thought enough quality to give you a selection of streams from the album below.

Washed Out - New Theory (RAC Mix) by RAC

Phoenix - Armistice (RAC Mix) by RAC

Delorean - Stay Close (RAC Mix) by RAC

Washed Out - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

Washed Out produce a sound that is blissfully dreamy, fuzzy and mellow with distant almost shoegazey vocals - it’s virtually impossible to understand the words being sung. At worst it is easy to imagine the sound of Washed Out cropping up all over those post nightclub comedown Chill Out compilations filed next to At The River by Groove Armada. At best we can visualise a whole album of this warm downy electronica which unlike much of the computerised genre abstains from harsh robotic sounds, instead reaching for something far more organic. Writing about this music out on a grey, cold rainy day in November seems somewhat incorrect, for Washed Out undeniably sound like the sound of summer. But then sometimes this is what we need music for, to take us on a journey.

Washed Out is one Ernest Greene from Perry, Georgia, who when he is not busy pushing out music on the internet is also an amateur photographer. You can check out his work using this link here. It captures the same gorgeous hazy atmospheres as his music. His first release was a now sold out limited edition two hundred copies cassette, which included the down tempo groove of Belong, currently racking up the plays on his Myspace. Now a new single Feel It All Around is now available from Pure Groove records in the UK. It arouses the slow contemplative spirit of 10CC’s I’m Not In Love and sun kissed beach romances that you wish would last forever. Utterly gorgeous. Time to fall in love again.