two weeks pass...
Here’s me trying to actually become Crooked Machine.
https://i.imgur.com/jMZUmNL.jpg
I’ve known Parrot for nigh on 30 years, I’ve been close to him throughout my musical adventure.He’s always been there for me, he is a very, very special soul. I play him everything I do,to get his feedback and it’s always priceless. He is a hugely consistent artist and individual.
It’s really not enough to call it a remix album. Crooked Machine could stand on its own, it’s it’s own universe. The two records are in parallel dimensions. equal and opposite! 🚀
I wanted the artwork to be simple,this record is not about the popstar’ image, it’s a producer record. It’s about the music contained within. Braulio Amado had fun cutting me up into collage just as Parrot did with my voice.
https://i.imgur.com/n4Bp7ob.jpg
RIGHT GET READY FOR SOME BOTTOM END!!
https://i.imgur.com/D05kxtV.jpg
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1.KINGDOM OF MACHINES
R: They’ve taken the original to a very pure place, accentuated the cold, JG Ballardness of the original! The first track of the record lays it out, this isn’t necessarily going about pure dance music, it’s going to be about mood, big-time!! Oh it makes my heart sing! 🎼 💕
https://i.imgur.com/6EysAzo.jpg
I wanted the record to start with some of the Celtic-Soul/ Large Mammal In Pain wailing from Game Changer. Didn't think the whole song was the right opening. So with a very slight nod in the direction of Padlock, Roisin wails and then is edited into a different track. Also I thought it might be nice to sample a bit of an old Crooked Man release called 'This Machine'. That's where the high male vocal comes from. (I'll sue myself for copyright infringement later). Me and Roisin rarely talk about the meaning of specific lyrics or instrumentation. A bit like a pair of leaky old dogs, we each scratch at what the other one has done, and then maybe add a little deposit of our own… although we never discussed it, I've always presumed that 'Kingdom of Ends' is about finding yourself stuck on a wheel of physical and spiritual unresolve.
There's a climb of fresh excitement. You feel as if fulfilment can finally be reached...the itch just keeps on itching.
All of that may be a complete misreading of what the song is about, but it's certainly what me and Fat Dave tried to put into the music. It goes up, it goes down but ultimately never resolves.
It felt pretty obvious that for the remix LP some kind of landing should arrive, solid ground could be reached. So that's what 'Kingdom of Machines' is about, imposing a little stability.
But ultimately, right at the end when you think it might be over, the wheel just keeps on turning...
Into...
2.ECHO RETURNS
Down to the molecule! Some serious Celtic minimalism on the go here lads! We’re also in Doctor Who territory, inside the machine, backwards and forwards in time! Deep Disco mysticism, machine mythology.
The love story of Echo and Narcissus is such a cracking tale, and luckily well enough known for me to go off at an arty-farty angle without feeling in danger of misrepresenting what Roisin was singing about. The picture I had in my head when making Echo Returns was of Narcissus dead, floating face down in the languid pool whilst what remains of Echo hovers above, powerless, fragments of her flickering across the water and bouncing between the wet river rocks.
Which is quite pretentious... So as an antidote to the pseudery...
3.CAPABLE RHYTHM
Is just an old version of Incapable with some rhythm guitar busked over the top. Spotlight on Fat Dave!
I’d love to be back in the cellar in Sheffield and hear this get dropped. When I was living in Sheffield years ago, it was always other people who made records that really worked at those underground parties, but this would slap everyone’s arse!
Perfect version, encapsulates it all, so Sheffield.. Its a glamor-stomper! The guitar on this is a special thing of beauty.
https://i.imgur.com/0Or6pJ0.jpg
4. ASSIMILATION
This song was the first one written for this entire project and it was so long ago, with this remix it all comes flooding back, the spirit of everything.
https://i.imgur.com/aEVCtQj.jpg
Parrot sure can do a build and release, he must be good in bed! 😜
These piano chords, I feel them so hard, it’s so of my moment right now. I have a feeling that whenever I hear this song in the future, I will be back in this peculiar moment, this era of our lives.
I’m in my happy place.
I was shitting myself doing 'Simulation' cos I always quite liked the original, and unusually for me had never felt the urge to experiment with other versions... But it turned out ok, probably the best thing on the record. It's got more of a traditional "song" arrangement than the main version, which is quite unusual in the world of modern remixes.
5. CROOKED MADAME
Ironically, this is rhythmically straighter and less crooked than 'Shellfish Mademoiselle'. Which was totally intentional. It was an opportune moment for a moment of slightly wonky disco dancing. To help me get the feel, I pictured Murphy doing her old broken robot moves.
https://i.imgur.com/dfxQiUA.jpg
Sublime groove, this is a Parrot classic, it just bounces along, total equilibrium in this song. It’s simple, deceptively.
There’s something about Parrot's claps, they’re so fully real and rounded, I recon it’s the claps that keep this whole project together. The rather mechanical structure of the music is humanised!
It has that kind of minimalism, that kind of regimentation that makes you bore down into the very core of yourself, into the very meaning of existence.
There were 75,000 lyrics in the original track or thereabouts, and before it had a title everyone always called it “the Mademoiselle track.” Even though I only say that word once.
6. LESS IS MORE
Another hands in the air moment!! We are in a field at 9am, been dancing all night and we could dance forever!
#LessIsMore Well the title could be engraved on Parrots gravestone!
oh the drama here!
This is a really good version, one of my favourite tracks on the record. Love it, it’s deep and dark as fuck but still camp as hell!
https://i.imgur.com/ICjphBD.jpg
There was a previously released mix of 'Something More' that we did very quickly, almost as an afterthought. The track was sped up 5bpm and only part of the bass line used. This resulted in the song taking on a darker, deeper vibe …but unfortunately we ran out of time before we could massage the chorus into its new bedding. That'd always niggled me, because there's nothing I like better than a sweet melody riding on a dark undercarriage.The full remix LP felt like an opportune moment to nag Fat Dave into getting the chorus to work on the truncated b line. Which he did by using musicianly words like "transposition" and "modulation" and other magical musical twattery that I'm too stupid to understand.
7. NAME CHANGER
#NameChanger which Parrot did across this album, changing the titles' names to titillate and amuse himself
https://i.imgur.com/7dbfRxQ.jpg
What a concoction this groove is. Funky and menacing at the same time, a totally unique sound.
The oldest song on Roisin Machine was 'Murphy's Law', which had originally been written for the Overpowered album but didn't make it past the A&R man. For it's eventual release, Murf freshened the vocals up with a couple of extra parts, and 'Game Changer' was a song that evolved out of one of said parts.For a no doubt very important reason that I can't remember, somewhere along the way, the tune acquired a bit of a soul shuffle, and I liked the idea of picking the remix up with a loping 4/4 kick drum. Slightly Steppers.
Which steps into...
8. WE ARE THE LAW
Come on then!!! Let’s have ya!!
https://i.imgur.com/nwiqgAK.jpg
This one sounds quite 80s doesn't it?These days I tend to avoid doing remixes that don't use many vocals from the original songs. For DJs I accept that tunes with just a few rhythmic shards of vocal are easier to sequence... But in dance music that style can be so prevalent that sometimes it's a struggle to find the real primal beating heart of a tune. Everything becomes a single carpet of noise. Or very loud wallpaper.
Anyroad, despite my foibles, I thought it might be fun to forget about the songs for once and just have a bit of this and a bit of that over a bit of something else. Like a megamix or summat.
Great running track this! It has propulsion.
Synths are magic on this track.
9. HARDCORE JEALOUSY
Oh God this is bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad! (In a good way, obvs) ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Complex remix to have achieved, It’s an incredible feat! Imagine when I got to the end of this record on first listen, everything was already in its right place, I got to the end, to this track and “Jesus fucking Christ”, I said to myself, “he’s out done himself!”
'Jealousy' is a tune that always contained a lot of kinetic energy. The original rhythm track was giddy disco fluff, which Murf responded to with a lyric about frantic, unstoppable ever building emotion. Like a rush of sugar to the head, the finished article was simple but pleasingly effective.So we were aghast when record labels interested in releasing it as a single wanted to slow the tempo down. Because apparently "people can't dance to anything faster than 130bpm". Jesus... That's a good proportion of dance music history disappearing down the K-hole innit?
Parrot: 'Hardcore Jealousy' is a response to that. No, we're not going to slow it down.
We're going to make it punch you in the face.
Then run off laughing. 🤪😜
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Basically, this record is right up my street, which is handy. But really, I love it. It’s timeless not just something that’s trying to reach for the Zeitgeist or for a few extra sales.
No, it’s a warmer experience than that, warmer than most music around at the moment. And it came from the place of soulful authenticity. #crookedmachine forever 🔥
Thank you everybody who came to this very groovy party! KEEP STEPPING!! until the next time 🔥🔥🔥🔥
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Sunday, 13 June 2021 23:08 (two years ago) link
two months pass...
three weeks pass...
nine months pass...