- What are the chances that DJ Qu is a Joni Mitchell fan? Pretty good, I'd say—not because his music sounds anything like her, but I can't hear his precisely calibrated spray of hi-hats and not think of the title of her album The Hissing of Summer Lawns. That's true once again with his remix of the Italian duo Sailor Mood's "Brick Brick Brick." The original, released earlier this year on Romania's All Inn Records, is a low-end-intensive, acid-house jam whose main feature is its juke-inspired vocal sampling, a firehose-strength stream of syllables. DJ Qu flips the script entirely, reducing both the voices and the bassline to a burbling hint of tone buried deep in the mix; the main action is in straight-ahead hi-hats and ride cymbals, a steady shimmer of 16th notes. The closer you listen, the more you become aware of the complex patterns just beneath the surface, as dry rimshots and handclaps answer in pitter-pat rhythms, like some kind of syncopated morse code. It's math made dreamlike.
Kassem Mosse takes a similar approach in his remix of "East Brick Wall," by Genoa's Summed & Dot. Hissing 909 hi-hats are run through delay and sprayed across the stereo field, with piano and bass counterpoints setting a mood suggestive of a hazier Roman Flügel. Like Qu's remix, it's deceptively simple, creating something dark and rich out of meager materials.
Tracklist A Sailor Mood - Brick Brick Brick (DJ Qu Remix)
B Summed & Dot - East Brick Wall (Kassem Mosse Remix)