Various - Twisted: Indie Floorfillers for a Twisted Generation

  by Anthony Dhanendran

published: 6 / 7 / 2005

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Review

This relentlessly Cool compilation (note the capital C) pitches the current crop of indie bands making waves in the charts against dance and house remixers to create what the front cover refers to as ‘indie floorfillers for a twisted generation’. What this means in practice is that these are the radio edits of remixes of various indie songs of the 2004 and 2005 vintages. It’s designed to make everything sound very Now, to distinguish this wave of indie music from what the compilers seem to think was the stodgy, too-much-guitar indie of the last few years. In practice, it makes everything sound a bit like the Rapture. The first disc opens promisingly with Mylo’s beaty stripped-down take on the Killers’ 'Somebody Told Me'. The Superdiscount treatment manages to make even the Bravery’s lumpen 'An Honest Mistake' sound new and promising, and Bodyrockers’ 'I Like The Way' is a decent enough pop song, even if it doesn’t really fit in with the more indie-cool offerings on this disc. The Rapture’s 'House of Jealous Lovers' is left to its own devices, being pretty much the blueprint for all of these mixes. The Others’ 'This is For the Poor', in the form of a Phones edit, is a little too stripped, coming out sounding too much like the Audio Bullys for its own good. The Playgroup dub of Portobella’s 'Viva La Difference' doesn’t really get going. The longest track on this disc, Ewan Pearson’s nine-minute extended remix of Depeche Mode’s 'Enjoy The Silence', adds a Now sheen and some electronic sparkles to a classic song, one whose influence is felt nearly everywhere else on these two discs. It’s pleasant enough, but it’s hard work to add anything truly special to a song such as this one. Soulwax are a band who fit right in in this company, and their offering is in the form of a Tiga mix of E Talking that manages to make the band sound like the Pet Shop Boys. In a good way, obviously. It’s probably the stand-out mix on this disc. The final tune, on the other hand, Thirteen Senses’ 'Into the Fire', remixed by Cicada, sounds like two different songs welded together. The beginning of the second disc is where it starts to get really postmodern, with the Paper Faces mix of the Scissor Sisters’ cover of Pink Floyd’s 'Comfortably Numb'. Got that? It’s not that good, though, being a standard tech-house riff with the Sisters’ Bee Gees impression wafting over the top, so it needn’t concern us any longer. Mylo makes a second appearance, with his 'Destroy Rock & Roll' which, again, is pleasant enough, but the riff was done better ten years ago by Negativland. The original version of Kasabian’s 'Processed Beats' sounds exactly like the kind of slightly lumpen indie that the producers of this album are trying to forget, but it works nonetheless. The ubiquitous Bloc Party feature, with a fun Whitey remix of 'Helicopter' that compresses both the sound and the words, to create a slightly faster, more jumpy version of the song. The Phones version of the Futureheads’ Kate Bush cover, 'Hounds of Love', doesn’t really work either, but it still passes muster as a good song. Things turn a bit darker with the Black Strobe mix of the Rapture’s 'Sister Saviour' and a Tiefschwarz dub of 'Kinda New' by Spectrum, but the mashed-together 'You’re So Crazy', by Par-T-One vs INXS, is more interesting. The final track, LFO’s remix of the more-easily-pronounced-than-it-looks !!!’s 'Me and Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard' actually improves on the original, but it is still a bit of a dirge, albeit a dirge with good beats. All in all, the compilation doesn’t really sit together as a coherent album, but then very few such albums do. The songs that work well work very well indeed, but there are enough poor versions on here to make it worth taking a close look at the artist roster on the back before parting with any cash.

Track Listing:-

1 The Killers- Somebody Told Me (Mylo Remix)
2 The Bravery- An Honest Mistake (Superdiscount Remix)
3 Bodyrockers- I Like The Way (Full Length Version)
4 The Rapture- House Of Jealous Lovers (Original Mix)
5 The Others- This Is For The Poor (Phones’ Bourgeois Mix)
6 Portobella- Viva La Difference! (Playgroup Dub Mix)
7 Depeche Mode- Enjoy The Silence (Ewan Pearson Extended Remix)
8 Soulwax- E Talking (Tiga’s Disco Drama Remix)
9 13 Senses- Into The Fire (Cicada Remix)
10 Scissor Sisters- Comfortably Numb (Paper Faces Mix)
11 Deep Dish- Flashdance (Original Club Mix) (UK Radio Version)
12 Mylo- Destroy Rock & Roll (Original Mix)
13 Kasabian- Processed Beats (Original Mix)
14 The Futureheads- Hounds Of Love (Phones’ Wolf At The Door Remix)
15 The Rapture- Sister Saviour (Blackstrobe Remix)
16 Spektrum- Kinda New (Tiefschwarz Dub 12” Remix)
17 Par-T-One vs INXS- You’re So Crazy (Original Mix)
18 !!!- Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (LFO Remix)