Los Angeles-based electro-pop peddler Big Black Delta (aka Jonathan Bates) released his latest single, “Summoner,” just a few week ago. Taken from his forthcoming album 4, which is due out sometime later this summer, the track is a deliriously catchy mass of electronic rhythms and pop hooks, developing into an inspired techno romp over the course of its 6-minute runtime. A song destined to whir around in your head for days, it has clearly left a sizable impression on some of his fellow musicians.
Recently, a trio of artists took the reins of “Summoner” away from Bates and molded it into something unique and absolutely captivating, a trifecta of interpretations which pays homage to the original while also creating something wild and wonderfully unpredictable. While some remixes can be unnecessarily beholden to their source material, these musicians are ambitious in the chances they take, and their risk is rewarded with some truly mesmerizing alternative realities.
Experimental electronic artist James Welsh, known for his work under the guise of Kamera for respected label Phantasy, has crafted a dizzying club atmosphere, luxuriating in the droning rhythms and prickly beats that seem to levitate under his deft guidance. He develops a balance between the song’s innate pop melancholy and its extroverted ability to move copious amounts of bodies on the dancefloor.
Welsh explains: “Really enjoyed this one. Ended up being quite melodic but with a melancholy darkness. The original arpeggio was so good that I just worked around it. Bit of a sinister, acid fairground vibe… In a good way.”
Notoriously reclusive Detroit-based experimental post-punk duo The Bodies Obtained revel in the mystery of their goth and industrial punk tendencies, though they do seem to share a love for the stranger pop atmospheres of Roxy Music and Brian Eno. They turn “Summoner” into a dingy and pockmarked landscape where beats shudder and shake in the darkness and synths slowly unfurl toward the encroaching darkness.
“[We] hope the subversion of taking a great song like ‘Summoner’ down a different path allows a few more people to watch the video from Warren Kommers and Nina McNeely with the original mix,” the band says. “It’s the perfection of sound and vision!”
The music of Los Angeles-based musician-producer Clearside (aka Bryan Dych) is steeped in the traditions of underground electronic music where an artist felt no need to cling to some preferred fashion or rhythmic trend. Utilizing analog synths across a brackish collection of scorched-earth beats, his work is instantly memorable, firing off all the synapses along your spine. His take on “Summoner” is theatrical and expansive, sounding as if Vangelis and The Chemical Brothers had met in elementary school and never lost touch.
“I had been completely obsessed with BBD’s track ‘Capsize’ since the first time I had heard it a few years back,” Dych recalls, “so it was quite an honor to be asked to work on a remix for ‘Summoner’. After one playthrough I was hooked, and thought it could be an interesting idea to latch onto and focus on the darker tone of the track. I think it turned out to be the perfect song for us to collaborate/mix on because there was an undercurrent of unsettling tension that I immediately was inspired by. I was immediately drawn into the vibe and momentum of the track. The analog imperfections and warble of the synths added so much personality and emotion. Loving everything about the track, I didn’t quite know where to start until I heard the bass line near the end of the song and knew instantly that centering my version of the track around that was going to be the way forward.”
Check out Big Black Delta’s original version of “Summoner” below.
