“Allah blessed me with a Midas-y touch/ Everything I lay to hands turns to Ethiopian gold, shiny and buffed,” Jay Electronica once claimed. The same could be said of remix NYC-via-LA beatsmith Henry Laufer, better known as Shlohmo. His original stuff is excellent–this year’s Vacation EP and especially last year’s Bad Vibes stand as testaments to that. But anything he blesses with a remix instantly turns golden.
LOL Boys’ “Changes” is the latest to receive that Shlohmo treatment. What was a pleasantly ambiguous blend of fed-up longing and head-bobbing fun is now a far heavier, damper beast. The numbed smile has been remixed into a spaced-out snarl. The head-bobbing loses some bounciness in favor of more snap. The fun-promising pitch of the original has been taken down into something far more solemn and intent. Shlohmo means business here: the repeated assurances that “Things won’t change until we do” make for a menacing lamentation, not some hopeful epiphany. Shlohmo has done it again, and once more, downers across the world can rejoice in his prowess.
Watch the video (and entertain a healthy doubt that those are these folks’ actual wallpapers) for the original “Changes” here:
