Ringo Deathstarr: Shadow (Deep Cut Remix, 2012)

Deep Cut no sólo son autores de uno de los mejores discos del año pasado, su increíble Disorientation, sino que también son creadores de remezclas como ésta de un gran single de Ringo Deathstarr. Os dejo el Soundcloud para que podáis descargarlo gratuitamente.

Deep Cut: Disorientation (2012)

Si algo tiene de bueno el segundo disco de Deep Cut (y os aseguro que es muy muy bueno), es la variedad con la que nos encontramos desde el principio del mismo. Variedad que no quiere decir que sea un disco deslabazado, ni muchísimo menos. Deep Cut ha concebido un disco igualmente aceptable para oídos y sensibilidades cercanas al Shoegaze (Dead inside your heart, Something´s got to give, Next disaster), al Noise-Pop (Makes me wanna, The letter), al sonido Manchester (Magazine), al Dream-Pop (Inner star, Out of nothing), e incluso al Kraut (Decision time, Another look in the mirror). Y, como dije antes, sin menoscabo de su unidad y mucho menos de su calidad. Un disco notable en el que los londinenses lo mismo te enseñan los dientes que te muestran toda su sensibilidad Pop (Cruel reminder, About face) pero digamos que en un sentido más cercano al que poseerían, por ejemplo, Garbage.
Mención aparte para los dos mejores cortes del disco: Something´s got to give, una especie de cruce de caminos entre The Brian Jonestown Massacre y The Dandy Warhols (¿Qué fue antes, el huevo o la gallina?). Una canción tremenda con todos los ingredientes que buscamos en el Pop: letra ingeniosa, guitarras muy distorsionadas, un aire groove durante todo el tema, arreglos de metal y un riff de guitarra de doce cuerdas majestuoso… ¡se me ponen los pelos de punta!
La otra gran canción es Dead inside your heart. Como dice Mat Flint (Death in Vegas, Revolver), ideólogo de Deep Cut: el corte más Pop del disco. Un intento de saborear a Big Star mezclándolos con el sonido Manchester de los grupos con chica al frente (Primitives, Darling Buds…). En la canción, Mat utilizó también la Rickenbacker de doce cuerdas para asemejar su estilo al de Jonny Marr. Vosotros diréis si lo consiguió. A mí me emociona escucharla una y otra y otra vez.
Un señor disco, desde luego, descubierto por un servidor con mucho retraso (es del año pasado) pero saboreado con mucho placer y servido con las mejores galas.

Deep Cut – Disorientation (2011)

“Lead songwriter/guitarist Mat Flint (formerly of Death In Vegas/Revolver) has put together a handy track-by-track guide together exclusively for The 405:

1)Inner Star
This song is about someone you know and love, who has lost all confidence in themselves – but who is basically amazing in your eyes, and in other people’s too. We had the chords knocking around for ages – I did a really rough demo of it back in 2006. But we couldn’t really seem to finish it off.. Then one evening, it all seemed to fall into place. We got the vocal melody, and Emma came up with the lyrics, and we took it into the studio and just jammed it out. The version on the album is pretty much the only time we have played it together as a band! The idea was to make it one of those slow, rolling numbers that Verve used to do early on… But when we started it, we kept adding stuff like high vocal harmonies, fucked up feedback and weird synths, that took it somewhere else. The middle section is really spacey, it’s the first time our band has really played like that. In the end, we thought it was so epic that we had to start the album with it.

2)Dead inside your heart

I wanted to do something really bright and poppy, like Big Star, and I was going to do it with chiming Stratocasters like they used to do. But when we started playing it, I decided to put a 12 string Rickenbacker on it, which seemed to suit it more. For the guitar solo, I was trying to be Johnny Marr. It didn’t end up sounding like him really, but I’m not afraid to try stuff like that as it makes you play differently to how you would normally. It’s ended up being one of our poppiest tracks. Lyrically, it’s about the deterioration of a friendship – how you can gradually lose touch with someone over time, until you realise one day that this person couldn’t actually give a shit about your feelings at all.

3)Next disaster
We were really trying to get that Byrds feel, like ‘So You Wanna Be A Rock n Roll Star’, what with the brass section, and the guiro percussion. But then I did that high vocal melody – we were thinking about using a Theremin – and it went off somewhere else again, like Mercury Rev or something. It’s got a really great breakdown, where we all drop out and come back in again.. I love the drums and the bass playing. This one’s about that feeling you get when it just seems like one bad thing is happening to you after another. I think everyone has those spells in their lives where they think, “what else can happen to me now?” Really great lyrics from Emma on this one: “my guardian angel’s about to resign, he’s given up the ghost and he’s calling time.” I love that line.

4)Magazine
This song is really about the power of your memory – how you can forget about something, but then your mind can remind you of it very quickly, when you see a photograph, or read something, you know? You can be taken back to a place, or a person, in an instant – just through some random incident, years later. We took a breakbeat from a DJ tool record I had, slowed it down so it was more stoned-sounding, and then just jammed the guitars on the top, building them up til we had something really hypnotic. We wanted it to sound pretty trippy, so there are backwards guitars on there, strange subliminal synths that you can’t really hear – but are definitely there, adding something.

5)Something´s got to give
We really like the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and fancied having a go at doing something like they did on tracks like ‘Servo’. You know, psych but with a groove, and a 12 string lead part. So we came up with this one.. But when we started recording it, it sounded more like a Dandy Warhols song! and we just went with it, high harmonies in the chorus, brass section with another hook, made the intro sound really bright and poppy. And it kind of had to be the single, really. Lyrically, the song is about someone that’s burning the candle at both ends… could be drink, could be drugs – doesn’t matter really. But they’ve reached that point where they either go downhill – or make a decision to change.

6)Decision time
We wanted to do something on a Neu/Harmonia tip, with that feeling of motion, or movement, that the best Kraut stuff has from that early 70s era. You know, where you lock into that repetitive riff, but it takes you somewhere else entirely. But it’s got a fat synth bass line, and really gentle vocals, so it’s different to that stuff.. Me and Emma sing this one together, and it’s the last track we finished for the album. And one of my favourites on the album. The lyrics just follow the feeling of wanting to escape from your situation, to be taken somewhere else.

7)Makes me wanna
We did a song called ‘Just Chasing’ on our first album, and I originally saw this as a follow-on song to that, like a “part two”. But it kind of became more than that. It’s still got that heavy Stereolab vibe to it, but like they’ve got Primal Scream on guitars or something. Lots of people seem to really like this one – we’ve opened with it a couple of times.  Emma plays a drill on it! And basically, it’s a kind of lust song. It’s pretty obvious really!

8)Cruel reminder
This is our insomnia song. That horrific feeling when you can’t sleep, for whatever reason, and you start to go slightly insane. Musically, it’s another older one. The original demo was trying to get that Sonic Youth on Murray Street sort of feel – really spaced out, and gentle. Then we stuck this other part on it, the bridge part, which was more heavy, and was a really good juxtaposition… Its got some pretty heavy delays going on in the middle section.. And I’m using a beer bottle on the neck of the guitar to create the “rocket taking off” noises at the end! Again, really great bass and drums on this tune.

9)About face
This is another one of my favourite tracks. It’s got a kind of Strokes-y feel with the straight rhythm guitar.. but we tried to make it even poppier than they would do, with the ‘Heart of Glass’ by Blondie backing vocals and stuff. The lyrics are about putting your trust in someone, and then being really surprised by the way they behave – when they do something that you hadn’t really expected. And you realise that you’d misjudged them, they weren’t the person that you thought they were. I think it’s got some really great lyrics and vocal delivery – “you lost your nerve, you loser!” It’s nice to do tracks where there isn’t a big wall of distortion all the way through… I think it has more impact when it comes in and out of the song, like it does on this one.

10)The letter
We all love Husker Du, and this was our attempt to do something as intense as ‘Tilted’ by Sugar… I don’t know if we did it, but I think it’s one of the best songs on the album, and it’s one of the last songs we completed for it. Someone said to me that it sounded like early Oasis, which was a pretty good comment – I can kind of see what they mean. I think the middle part sounds a bit like the Bunnymen, and the “hey hey hey” vocals came from the Jesus and Mary Chain! It’s another song about the breakdown of a friendship – someone that you love, who you trust, but who isn’t reciprocating that at the moment, for whatever reason.  I think it would make a good single.

11)Out of nothing
This is possibly my favourite track on it.. We made it in a really different way to how we normally write. We took one of my favourite hip-hop records, sampled the main loop in it, then basically tried to recreate the loop, without the main piano hook in it. So, the first half of the song is our version of the loop without the piano, and then we bring the full loop in halfway through, so it has the effect of the piano coming in, if you see what I mean! We sampled some drums from another hip-hop record; and then I just wrote a song over the top of what was there. It’s about those moments in your life where you suddenly lose control, and do something really out of character – and then seconds later you’re amazed that you did it. Being really frightened about where a particular emotion or action has come from. I think everyone has those. Thinking about it, the very last thing we did for the album, after we’d finished all 12 songs, was to add that final bassline that comes in right near the end. I was listening back to it, and just thought it needed something else – and then I thought: Jah Wobble! It needed a Jah Wobble bassline… and that ended up being the best bit of the tune.

12)Another look in the mirror
OK. Our heaviest ever tune… One of my favourite records from when I was younger is this track by Band of Susans called ‘Hope Against Hope’. I think it was their first single in 1987 or something. Anyway, it kind of has the same, driving guitar chords all the way through, with these kind of chanted, almost shouty vocals done by a guy and a girl together. So, that was the inspiration for this, but again, I don’t know how much our track actually sounds like that one, by the time we’d finished it. On ours, the drums are looped, so it really locks in, and we did loads of guitar feedback tracks that all come in at the same time about two thirds of the way through. That was really good fun, I was standing against the amp, while Ian fucked with the tremolo settings and speed.. then we just layered them all on top of each other, in stereo. And the song is about total paranoia… that feeling you get when you’ve been getting wasted with friends, and at the end of the evening, they’ve all left your house or whatever, and you’re on your own. And you don’t really know what to do with yourself, whether to try to sleep, or carry on…. I knew when we were doing it that it was going to close the album. It had to” (theforohfive.com)

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