It’s the final stretch! 28 horses entered this race and only eight remain, fighting it out over the final hurdles until one is crowned The Best DFA Remix Ever — until, that is, we change our minds. Which one of us may already have done.

Podcast!

Back when we did the Dissident World Cup, we considered releasing the conversation as a podcast. Reading my summaries is one thing, but it never quite matches up to the fun of hearing two increasingly grumpy old men reminiscing about the past live on the mic. What stopped us back then was the sheer amount of time we spent talking. We thought we should spare you all.

This time around, however, we were more concise, and ended up with a very reasonable couple of hours of material. After some very expert editing from Teamy — who’s inserted well-chosen clips of the tracks we’re talking about along the way — we are thrilled to present the audio version of the DFA Remixes World Cup — all three parts! — for you to enjoy as you go for a wintry walk, do the washing up, or just hide from your family in your bedroom.

Listen to it here:

Discotheque World Cup: DFA Remixes

DFA World Cup by Disco World Cup | Mixcloud

Listen to DFA World Cup by Disco World Cup

Thanks Teamy for the bang up job on this. It’s a really fun listen!

If you’re more of a reader than a listener, scroll on…

Quarter-finals!

Here’s a reminder of how the bracket stands after Part One and Part Two and going into the quarter-finals:

Some greats have fallen, some outsiders have caused an upset, and things are only going to get more difficult from here on out…let’s get on with it!

Hot Chip - ‘Colours’ vs Junior Senior - ‘Shake Your Coconuts’

Well, it couldn’t last. Junior Senior’s fairytale run through the first rounds of this contest comes to a tragic end at the hands of stealth scrappers Hot Chip. Turns out 5 really do beat 2 in a fight. The coconuts are shaking no more. Teamy recalls that time in the Dissident World Cup that we put a record that was basically a single drum machine pootering away to itself for 11 minutes through to the quarter finals. No one expected JS to make it this far. It’s so much fun — but it can’t match up to the beauty of ‘Colours’. Sorry Junior Senior. Sorry “fun”.

Winner: Hot Chip - ‘Colours’

Pixeltan - ‘Get Up, Say What’ vs Delia Gonzalez & Gavilán Rayna Russom - ‘Rise’

Joe notes that both tunes have a lot of nostalgic meaning for him; he’s known them for 20 years and one of them, at least, is still very present for him. Teamy proposes a kind of paper-scissors-stone: on a count of three we say the track we want to go through. “Get Up” says Teamy. “Rise” says Joe. “I knew that was coming” says Teamy. Joe notes how poised ‘Rise’ is, it just sits there and although it goes places it doesn’t spiral. Teamy compares it to being at the top of a rollercoaster, the feeling before the drop. We both acknowledge how great ‘Get Up’ is but Teamy is happy to give way on this particular match-up. ‘Rise’ goes through.

Winner: Delia Gonzalez & Gavilán Rayna Russom - ‘Rise’

Black Dice - ‘Smiling Off’ vs Nine Inch Nails - ‘The Hand That Feeds’

“Mmmm…different” says Teamy. Joe offers: “Do we want weirdo-post-punk-no-wave-studio-oddity-Black-Dice or do we want Trent Reznor and a disco ball?” We discuss how, with his leather trousers, Trent Reznor could just as easily have ended up as a disco singer. Joe starts strategising: ‘The Hand That Feeds’ and ‘Slide In’ are kind of in the same broad category of DFA remix, and from the same year, and he would always choose the latter over the former. Not that that’s an argument for knocking NIN out now…but maybe it is? But then what if ‘Slide In’ gets knocked out and then there’s no disco odyssey left in the contest? Joe gives ‘The Hand That Feeds’ points for the label putting out all three full versions on the physical release. We respect the Black Dice remix — Joe is definitely going to play it out sometime soon — but Trent’s leather trousers go through to the semis.

Winner: Nine Inch Nails - ‘The Hand That Feeds’

Gorillaz - ‘Dare’ vs Goldfrapp - ‘Slide In’

We haven’t really talked about ‘Dare’ yet, except as a slightly ominous outline looming on the horizon. Now it’s up against one of our pre-tournament favourites, we have to get into it. We stick it back on and soak in the groove. It’s just over 12 minutes long, in three movements, and does transform the original from something quite annoying into something incredibly compelling. Joe was a big fan of the first Gorillaz album and listened to it incessantly on CD when it first came out, but the second album never resonated as much and ‘Dare’, in his opinion, has not held up. Even when he heard Lis Dalton drop it at Campout it didn’t land (though it did for seemingly everyone else present).

Teamy tells a story about playing this remix at home once and his housemate popping his head round the door a few minutes later to ask: “what was that thing you were listening to? The one that sounded like the wormhole?” ‘The wormhole’ being the somewhat delirious journey you take back home from the club to sitting on your sofa coming down with a cup of tea. The middle section of this remix, which gets going around the 5 minute mark, is that wormhole: a mad synth freakout that buzzes like a swarm of bees, panning left and right and heaping on layer upon layer of noise, while the groove barrels on underneath until near the 9 minute mark, when the angry swarm subsides, leaving only some squelching, slithering stragglers, and you emerge out the other side wondering what just happened. Thus begins the final section, an almost too sprightly drum machine accompanied by fitful blurps from the synth, squeezing the last dregs out of the mid-track high until it’s time to lie down. Teamy conjures a mental image of multiple people stood around a single synth, tweaking knobs and turning dials to gradually modulate that central motif over the full arc of the track.

So we’re both huge fans of ‘Dare’ aka ‘The Wormhole’. It’s really special. But so is ‘Slide In’, and we feel like Alison’s vocal performance wipes the floor with Gorillaz/Shaun Ryder’s ad libs. ‘Slide In’ is also more playable, and although that wasn’t an original criteria of the contest, we can’t help take it into consideration. We have plenty more to say about ‘Slide In’, but that will come in the next round, as we decide to put it through here. A titan has fallen…prematurely?

Winner: Goldfrapp - ‘Slide In’

Semi-finals!

We feel pretty good about these four being in the semi-finals. Teamy says ‘Dare’ could replace any one of the four, but in general these are the heavyweights. And each of us has one of our initial picks in the first semi-final…

Hot Chip - ‘Colours’ vs Delia Gonzalez & Gavilán Rayna Russom - ‘Rise’

For Joe, listening to and talking about ‘Colours’ during this conversation has brought home to him how beautiful it is as a track, and how singular it is in the catalogue for not being a dancefloor tune. But then he checks himself and explains what he likes so much about ‘Rise’: on the surface it’s a dancefloor track, it has that pulse and momentum; but if you’re a DJ thinking about when you’re going to play it, it’s not actually very obvious where it fits in. If you think it’s a warm-up track, it might surprise you by how huge it sounds. But if you try to play it at peaktime, it’s definitely a simmer rather than a surge. Teamy pegs it as a good transitional record from one vibe or genre to another, a bit like Gino Soccio’s evergreen ‘Remember’. It sets an intention for the dancefloor: we’re going somewhere, but you can’t be sure where, so just pay attention to the depth of this thing right now.

Joe then points out that none of what he’s saying is relevant to ‘Colours’, which is about something completely different. Beyond the lyrics themselves, the detail and quality of the Hot Chip remix makes it a kaleidoscopic experience, even if you don’t have synaesthesia. You listen to it and your whole brain lights up with different colours. Teamy feels pretty strongly about it, and Joe is willing to go with it. The amount of work that’s gone into making ‘Colours’ sound beautiful is so impressive. We feel it shows a maturity that sets it apart.

There’s no shame in Delia and Rayna going out in the semis, and Joe takes this opportunity to entreat readers to go back and listen to their amazing LP The Days Of Mars. Teamy tells a brilliant anecdote: when D&G played at the Glasgow School of Art in 2006 or so, when the album came out, the two of them took to the stage around 2am. For those not familiar with the album, their music (and live act) featured the duo building up washes of arpeggios on synths, some of them homemade, into a kind of wall of beatless sound. Not your usual peaktime material. But Teamy remembers two things about the performance. First, about 20 minutes into the performance, looking out at the crowd it became evident that it was getting very sensual on the dancefloor with lots of hypnotised touching and cuddling. Second, later in the performance, as Teamy was chatting to Tim Goldsworthy about possibly moving away from Glasgow, a key change broke the repetition in the music and the venue erupted in a collective roar. The two of them started laughing and Teamy said: “maybe if I’m living in a city where a key change gets that sort of reaction, I should think twice before leaving.”

So we have our first finalist, from the top left of the bracket right to the centre.

Winner: Hot Chip - ‘Colours’

Nine Inch Nails - ‘The Hand That Feeds’ vs Goldfrapp - ‘Slide In’

Not ten minutes ago, Joe was preemptively comparing these two to each other. Teamy notes that the Goldfrapp one is very LCDish and the NIN one is a bit Soulwaxy. Both go off on one in the second half — the NIN remix hammering on the door, the Goldfrapp remix journeying through various moods into its trippy finale. For Joe that’s what seals it for ‘Slide In’, the unpredictable odyssey of it all, compared to a relatively linear ‘The Hand That Feeds’. “Yee-eeea-aaah” says Teamy, in half-agreement. For him what seals it is the treatment of Alison’s vocals, which sound like she’s in the room with them. Joe notes that one of The DFA’s big achievements as remixers is to make you feel like you’re at a big house party with them and the tune is being played there in the room. Teamy calls out that section early on in ‘Slide In’, around 2m50s, when the track drops out leaving a single syncopated stab and joyfully tumbling percussion like a cross between a Niagara jam and Harry Nilsson’s ‘Jump Into The Fire' — it really does sound like you’re right there with them, having the best time of your life tapping a woodblock or shaking a shaker, Alison then rejoining the fold with a delicate “ah-hah” before the whole song returns at full steam. Teamy reckons that that ‘room feel’ comes from James’s education in the school of Steve Albini, who was notorious for his hi-fidelity approach to using the room as an instrument when recording (in preference to applying effects in post-production). These details give ‘Slide In’ a compelling layer of feeling that doesn’t come through so much in ‘The Hand That Feeds’. Alison goes through to the final.

Winner: Goldfrapp - ‘Slide In’

Grand Final!!

From 28 tracks down to two, and Teamy suggests we’ve ended up with a final between a track that feels a bit more Tim and another track that feels a bit more James. “I might be wrong!” he reiterates, but they definitely represent different facets of the DFA prism. In Teamy’s words it’s “really gorgeous technicolour beautifulness, technicolour GOR-GI-NA” vs “sparkly disco pants and a tab of acid at a house party”.

The “gorgina" is of course the 2006 remix of ‘Colours’ by Hot Chip and the “sparkly disco pants” is the 2005 remix of ‘Slide In’ by Goldfrapp. Joe knows which one he’s gonna choose, but he says there’s no real way of reasoning it out because they are so different and stand for different things. In one way that makes it a fantastic final, as it captures completely contrasting sides of what the DFA brought to their remixes. But in another way it’s basically an impossible choice.

Hot Chip - ‘Colours’ vs Goldfrapp - ‘Slide In’

We bring in our silent studio engineer, who has spent the entire recording session in the background soldering mini speakers onto wires, and listen to both tracks in full again. Our studio engineer provides some interesting input: the Goldfrapp track feels more like a ‘remix’, while the Hot Chip track feels more like a ‘production’. Teamy says the reason the ‘Colours’ remix really works for him is you can hear the work they’re doing in the mixdown, bringing in variations and reverb, using the console as an instrument. But there’s not very much of ‘live feel’, and all of that pulls it into original production territory. It’s definitely an outlier, while ‘Slide In’ is almost the quintessential DFA remix.

It’s not much of an argument is it. But if we’re looking for the “DFA remix sound”, the sound of that room in Plantain Recording House, the collective joy to be had at a party — “sounds like a hell of a party too” says Teamy — with the drugs taking hold and the trip beginning…well, the moment that comes over 10 minutes into the ‘Slide In’ remix when the drums kick back in mid-trip, is a moment that could make people on a dancefloor lose their minds, just like D&G’s key change at the concert in Glasgow.

That seals things. We shake hands on it.

Winner: Goldrapp - ‘Slide In’

Postscript

Since we had this recording session and during the write-up process, there have been some second thoughts. Not on Joe’s part — he was batting for Goldfrapp from the start — but on Teamy’s. So we have allowed ourselves the indulgence of giving a final closing statement each. Who will have the last word?

Joe’s final thoughts

Well, the main thing we can all agree on is that The DFA Remix catalogue is a towering achievement. Even the ones I rated the lowest during the tournament are worth a listen (well, maybe not the Justin Timberlake one), and the best of them are best-of-all-time standard.

Any regrets? Not really. I doubt it has anything to do with my negotiating powers, but I’m pretty happy with every choice we made through the contest. I do wonder if perhaps ‘Mars, Arizona’ deserved to make it through over ‘Smiling Off’, and would then have given ‘The Hand That Feeds’ a real run for its money in the quarters. ‘Relevee’, too, was an unfortunate early casualty, knocked out by the eventual victor. But I can’t see any big mistakes. And although I agree with the winner, I wouldn’t have been that put out had ‘Colours’ or indeed ‘Rise’ or ‘Dare’ taken the crown.

Most of all this has been a wonderful excuse to listen back to a hell of a lot of amazing music, not just these remixes but a lot of the originals and collaborations swirling around the DFA ecosystem 20 years ago. Thank you James and Tim for bringing so much joy to our lives!

Teamy’s final thoughts

Joe might be surprised to learn that I had ‘Slide In’ top of my list from the start too. It’s definitely the one that I’ve played out more than any of the others.

Having thought about it a bit over the last few weeks I realised, on any given day, that 12 of the remixes could go to the semis if given a nicer first-round draw. There’s a lot of great stuff in there made from the alchemy of the right people at the right time, with lots of old equipment and the knowledge on how to squeeze the best from it.

As Joe mentioned, I did get buyer’s regret at one point after we did this, when I listened to Dare again and realised that, editing notwithstanding, one (and possibly two) of those synths is present the whole way through, though it modulates and changes. That tied with the out-and-out fun of it made me think for a while that maybe we’d made a mistake. But on reflection the Goldfrapp one does most of the same tricks in a classier way.

However, I did stop stressing out about niggles like this by remembering that these type of BEST EVER things are inherently silly and the whole point was to have a bit of a laugh and hang out with Joe, and to wrap myself in the warm blanket of nostalgia and memories provided by the remixes and a pair of good speakers. And in the process a few got revitalised in my mind, or even in a handful of cases went up considerably in my estimation. So a job well done.

I am now veering close to saying something reprehensible like “in the end the winner was music” so I will stop now.

I do maintain that the ‘Another Excuse’ remix is better than the NIN one though, and that ‘Another Excuse’ vs ‘Smiling Off’ is a much tastier quarter final.

Well that’s that, except for one final anecdote: