2 Many Dj's
As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt.2

LA RECENSIONE

Bastard pop or bootleg. The trend has existed for a couple of years in England; it involves roughly remixing two tracks from different artists, much like one might do at home on a PC, or even by running two records in parallel.

Now this underground phenomenon has come to light, ever since mainstream artists like Kylie Minogue presented a version of her song "Can’t Get Out Of My Head” crossed with "Blue Monday" by New Order on the B-side. Or a version of Madonna’s “Music” crossed with “One More Time” by Daft Punk. All things already done by Grandmaster Flash years ago.

What is the novelty?

We took the liberty of listening to this record by Soulwax, a Belgian indie band by brothers Stephen and Paul Dewaele, who in this side project go by 2 Many Djs, the first compendium of the genre. As they recount on their website “2manydjs.org,” they sought permission for 187 tracks but only managed to obtain it for 114, an exhausting job, they say.

In these 61.25 minutes, they remix everything, a Japanese version of Hanajo from "Joe le Taxi", the Breeders, the Stooges, Velvet Underground, Salt’n’Pepa, Garbage, and numerous dance tracks. How do they do it? In a super crude way, they obtain an a cappella version for instance of "Where’s Your Head At" by Basement Jaxx and play it over the base of "Peter Gunn" by ELP (arhghhh!).

Or they take "No Fun" by the Stooges from “1969” (a record with well-separated channels, voice only on the left balance and bass guitar and drums on the right to only get the base), equalizing like madmen, and place it on "Push It" by Salt’N’Pepa ("ta-na-na-na nana, uh baby baby"), then they take "Cannonball" by the Breeders, the initial part with few instruments and cross it with "My Gigolo".

Or "I Wanna be Your Dog" with "Dakar & Grinser" and this time simply by putting the balance to the left they only pull out Iggy's voice. And they cross Dolly Parton with Röyksopp. A frenzy. Many things are recognized only in subsequent listens. Brilliant. And you can even do it at home on your PC. Besides the Stooges, all the older Beatles records work well too, with instruments and voice well separated in the mix and any other recording before 1970.

Have fun.