If Masseduction Rewired didn’t exist there would be no great clamor to invent it. St. Vincent’s Masseduction, on which this remix album is based, has already been remade once in acoustic form, and there is no obvious crossover between St. Vincent’s warmly inventive indie pop and the arctic techno freeze of Rewired curator Nina Kraviz. More worryingly, remix albums generally run the gamut from damp squib to outright embarrassment.
Against the odds, though, Masseduction Rewired is actually rather intriguing. No one—bar a rabid and possibly theoretical St. Vincent/Kraviz crossover fan—will enjoy everything here; the 22 tracks frequently stretch the patience, but most people will find something to love. Rewired also provides food for thought: Its catholic approach to remix styles encourages the listener to consider the tangled art of the remake and the question of authorial identity.
Broadly speaking, the remixers on Masseduction Rewired fall somewhere between two poles: those who see the commission as a chance to tweak the original song and those who follow the Aphex Twin school of throwing the master tapes against the wall and seeing what sticks. Steffi’s gilded remix of “Slow Disco” does little more than nudge the original song into deeper disco territory, while EOD’s scuffed up and eerie take on "Los Ageless” makes full use of the original song structure. In both cases, St. Vincent’s songwriting dominates.
At the other end of the scale, Buttechno jettisons all but a few syllables of St. Vincent’s vocal for his remix of “Savior,” which he squanders over a weakling acid-house number that does neither party any lasting good. There’s something rather cheap about this approach, as if the talented Russian producer couldn’t raise himself to properly engage with the material. Icelandic artist Bjarki is also guilty of this; his version of “Pills” reduces the original’s sardonic take on pharmaceutical culture to precisely the two lines —“Pills to fuck” and “Pills, pills, pills”—that you might expect a techno producer with a looming deadline to employ. It’s not a bad song, exactly, just rather uninspired.
Against this are a number of takes where the remixer manages to reinvent or even subvert the original song without destroying it. A remix of “Masseduction” by Midland, the UK producer of “Final Credits” fame, foregrounds the gorgeous string rush in the original’s middle eight to stirring effect; Emika’s take on “Sugarboy” chills St. Vincent’s electro pulse into a glacial, neo-classical synth sweep; and Jlin’s version of “Smoking Section” bustles the original’s languorous waltz into a frisky, devious skip, the authorial spoils shared equally between remixer and remixee.
These individual songs represent the album at its best. But as an overall listening experience, Masseduction Rewired is a slog. It’s not just the album’s fanatical length; the decision (on the digital release) to shadow Masseduction’s original tracklisting means songs get bundled together that are either too similar to their neighbors—Nina Kraviz’ three individually excellent takes on “New York” come in a rather testing row—or too mismatched, with EOD’s mournful remix of “Slow Disco” being rudely interrupted by Kraviz’ more gabber, less gentle “Gabber Me Gently” overhaul of the same song.
Inconsistency and overindulgence mean Masseduction Rewired won’t join Massive Attack’s No Protection in the elite group of truly essential remix albums. But a handful of transformative moments rescue it from the tire fire where Daft Punk’s TRON: Legacy Reconfigured pleads guiltily for our pity. Masseduction Rewired is by no means indispensable, but as a distraction it has the frustrating charm of a good crossword puzzle.
Buy: Rough Trade
