- Say what you want about Nicolas Jaar's debut album—and most of you already did; it's easy to see that it was anything but a dance floor record. For this remix 12-inch, Circus Company ropes in producers to mould two of the album's songs into shapes more suited to pulling shapes. Circus Company labelmate Dave Aju's remix is predictable, and maybe a little too easy, but its infectiously hooky throb is too much to resist. Aju straightens out "Space Is Only Noise If You Can See," turning Jaar's original self-serious vocal into a hypnotic mantra and beefing up the original's blob of a bassline into chugging anthemia.
The selling point of the EP, however, is two ever-rarer appearances from French house maestro Pepe Bradock, whose contributions are about as out-there as you'd expect. Bradock's "Blind Pig" mix of "Too Many Kids Finding Rain in the Dust" emphasizes and underlines rather than deconstructs. In his hands the track becomes the druggy space-rock dirge it might've been, its shimmering guitar tones slowed down to syrupy smears and its bassline a motorik spore cloud of low-frequencies. There's not a kick drum to be found. Bradock's "Train Fantome Poke" mix of the track is more typically percussive, but it's the amphetamine-addled hi-hat frenzy of techno rather than Bradock's smoother house flavours. The original's muddled elements mingle messily underneath, however, and it never quite coheres.
Tracklist A1 Too Many Kids Finding Rain In the Dust (Pépé Bradock's Blind Pig Mix)
A2 Too Many Kids Finding Rain In the Dust (Pépé Bradock's Train Fantôme Poke)
B Space Is Only Noise If You Can See (Dave Aju Remix)
Digital: Too Many Kids Finding Rain In the Dust (Pépé Bradock's Mirandapella)