We’ve Learned The Elevating Trick

Of Montreal “The Party’s Crashing Us (I Am The World Trade Center mix)” – With this cut from the largely unnecessary but mostly quite pleasant Of Montreal remix album, I Am The World Trade Center unlock the full potential of a song that was already pretty good. Whereas the original recording was bogged down in a groove that was a bit too clumsy and slow, I Am The World Trade Center give the song a full Eurodisco makeover that sounds far more natural for its vocal melody and lyrical themes. Everything in the remix is smoother, snappier, catchier, and vastly more confident, not to mention more functional and efficient as a song for dancing. Lyrically, there’s some wonderful stuff going on here, especially in the final verse, which is simultaneously outrageously weird (“we made love like a pair of black wizards”) and totally heartfelt in its sentiment (“you freed me from the past, you fucked the suburbs out of me”), and basically sounds like something out of a Grant Morrison comic. After all, accessing hidden power within and without yourself in order to escape the dreariness of the “real world” is one of his major themes. It’s not hard to imagine this being one of the songs that Lord Fanny and Jack were shaking it to when they were dancing for the Harlequinade in my favorite issue of his Invisibles series. (Click here to buy it from Polyvinyl.)

Keith “Mona Lisa’s Child (Jack Built mix)” – Similarly, the original version of Keith’s “Mona Lisa’s Child” sounds like a promising yet unfinished rough draft for its eventual remixes, of which this Jack Built mix is by far my favorite. (Sorry, Alan Braxe and Fred Falke.) Interestingly, if you go listen to the original on their MySpace page, it actually sounds more like a remix than this version, which has the feeling of a great lost late 80s Brit indie dance song. There’s something a bit awkward and gawky about the spareness in the Keith version, whereas Jack Built’s arrangement gels nicely, and brings out the best in the chorus. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)