DJ Shadow Remixes King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s “Black Hot Soup,” And It’s Great
Last year, the prolific Australian psych-rock overlords King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their synth-heavy album Butterfly 3000. Later this month, they’ll follow that album with the remix LP Butterfly 3001, which features reworkings of Butterfly 3000 tracks from people like Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, DāM-FunK, and Peaches. But the marquee remix is the take on “Black Hot Soup” from DJ Shadow, another psychedelic traveler who’s heavy on the global festival circuit.
With his remix, Shadow has turned “Black Hot Soup” into a classic Shadow banger, a breakbeat-driven funk workout that only takes a few elements from the original track. Shadow’s “My Own Reality Re-Write” of the song layers tumbling drums over a heavy bassline and a whole lot of record-scratching, and it sounds like a beautiful circa-1997 vision of a future that sadly never came to pass.
Even better, Shadow’s “Black Hot Soup” remix has one of the best music videos I’ve seen in a long time. Director John Angus Stewart films John Safran, a famous Australian radio host and prankster, as he parties extremely hard and possibly gets himself in some trouble. This might be even better if you have some context on who John Safran is, but the sight of this guy air-scratching is a whole lot of fun even without that. Check out the video for the remix and the original “Black Hot Soup” below.
Butterfly 3001 is out 1/21 on KGLW. Check out our feature on King Gizzard and Butterfly 3000 here.