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M83 - "Kim & Jessie" (Montag remix)
M83, aka Anthony Gonzalez, toned his sounds down on fifth album Saturdays = Youth, but the emotions remain teenage, achy, and perfectly romantic. Gonzalez is releasing album standout "Kim & Jessie" as a digital single 7/22 on Mute. It includes four tracks -- the album version, a radio edit and remixes from DatA and Montag. If patience isn't your thing, no worries -- we have Montag's spare, ambient, percussive remix in this week's Drop. We asked Gonzalez what it felt like to have his tune tweaked.
How did the remix come about? Are you happy with it? I've known Montag for a long time, he speaks French and lives in Quebec and he used to be on a French label called Gooom Records, so we became really good friends. The connection was easy. He did a remix on my last album, and so I asked him to do one on this album, too. I really appreciate his music and I like this remix a lot. That's something we do for each other, make remixes.
Does the remix change your relationship to the original in any way? For instance, does the new version show you something you didn't know about the original or make you see it in a new light? When I ask for a remix or am asked to do a remix, I want it to sound different. The relationship doesn't change much, it's the same song because the lyrics are the same, you just create a different sound for it. If I remix a song, I make it completely different, change the melody, everything. It's more interesting if you take it and make it your own.
A remix is basically someone adding to/subtracting from your original. Is the story of Kim and Jessie the same even though someone else left his fingerprints on it? That's difficult. Since we kept the lyrics the story is still the same, the song is just different. He kept the same sort of pop ambiance in the track, but it is different, it has a different mood and feeling and that's the idea of a remix.
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