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

Delorean - Stay Close

Last month we introduced (here) Spanish bliss merchants Delorean, a group who bring warm repetitive summery vibes to the dance floor. Now its time to bring you some new music from the band. The next single will be Stay Close, taken from their forthcoming album Subiza. With hypnotic vocal chant samples reminiscent of Moby circa Play and tumbling euphoric beats, Delorean continue to bring the sunshine vibes early. It's the kind of sound that makes us want the 3rd summer of love to be just round the corner. Stay Close isn’t available until June the 8th on the True Panther label, so for now enjoy the video below.

For those in the UK who want to experience the highs that Delorean can bring, your first opportunity comes this May when the Barcelona boys arrive in Brighton to play the Great Escape Festival.

Delorean - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

After having just recently spent a week in the Costa Blanca it seems only appropriate for us to bring you some Spanish tuneage. We’re not talking flamenco here though.

Instead here is some rather good, sun kissed, trancey pop. It’s the kind of machine driven dance that lights up the hipster blogosphere. Yes, this is fashionable hallucinogenic electronic bliss. And whilst in our opinion sometimes the hipsters try too hard to be as cool as, and forget the all important quality, this one loads big bundles of that as well.

The name of this band is Delorean. They are from Spain. Delorean are a group who have mutated from a brash hardcore guitar act to a much lusher, scenic, grooving synth based gang. During this period of change Delorean have created near perfect remixes for the likes of The XX, The Big Pink, Lemonade, Franz Ferdinand and another recent Breaking More Waves new wave Glasser. They have also released the sparkling four track Ayrton Senna EP. Here’s to hoping that Delorean will follow it with a series of releases that name check F1 drivers who died in action starting with Gilles Villeneuve and our favourite Swedish geezer Ronnie Peterson.

The lead track from the EP - Sea Sun (live video below) - brings hypnotic Orbital-esque Cafe Del Mar beats and loops whilst Deli takes the guitar picking and sixties dreaminess from Nothing Can Stop Us Now by St Etienne, pushing forward with kind of modern dynamic sound energy that acts such as Delphic and Miike Snow are moving the times with. This is all rather neat as Delorean are supporting Miike Snow stateside in March and April after an appearance at South by South West 2010 in Austin, Texas. We’re starting early, but this is the sound of our summer.