Last year, Kelela returned with honed-in vision, sharpened songwriting, and 23rd-century production for Hallucinogen, a half-hour probe into the inner workings of love, lust, and codependency. Hallucinogen's amniotic take on club, R&B, and pop paired with a stronger vocal performance worked so well that it made her 2013 mixtape Cut 4 Me look like batting practice in comparison. But Kelela has always been an artist who works best when her unfettered voice is placed against unexpected backdrops: She brought effortless calm to Kingdom's metallic, bass-heavy club music on Cut 4 Me; sultry pathos to Kindness' loungey, sax-heavy sophomore LP Otherness; and a sense of gravity to Arca's nebulous electronics on Hallucinogen. This past Christmas, in a seeming bid to show off this versatility, Kelela dropped Hallucinogen Remixes, an EP containing remixes of four Hallucinogen tracks that spin her style into footwork, grime, baile funk, and other genres.
Remixes opens with a high-energy mix of "A Message," courtesy of footwork legend DJ Spinn. Spinn leaves the song's structure relatively as-is, adding fills of high-speed drum patterns beneath Kelela's verses to give the song a shuddering spark that puts it at thrilling odds against the original's languorous production. Brazilian baile funk artist MC Bin Laden's take on "Rewind" goes big, using a single line from the song and studding it with drops and verses from the MC to turn it into a towering baile number that wouldn’t sound out of place on the last Major Lazer record. It's riveting, but ultimately feels like filler against a vet like Spinn, who evokes the same urge to dance with significantly less pomp.
Elsewhere, Bristol producer Kahn gives Hallucinogen highlight "All the Way Down" an ominous grime re-do and recruits rising Brixton artist Gaika for a guest verse, whose elastic rapping and low-pitched voice work as a good complement to Kelela's diaphanous vocals. Melbourne producer Air Max ’97 gives the same song an undertow of fast-paced drumming and a few floating synth lines, focusing on vivid, key lines to dramatic effect: "I'm doing things that I don't do/ So comfortable when I'm with you... I'm staying over at yours tonight/ I'm calling late, let's exercise." The most distinct remix here comes from club and ballroom DJs Mike Q and Divoli S’vere, who strip away the reeling bass of Hallucinogen closer "The High" and substitute just a pounding heartbeat and skittering, sped-up samples of Kelela’s voice. It's a creative flip on the original that, alongside DJ Spinn and Kahn's entries, also makes a good case for this collection's existence.
That being said, Hallucinogen Remixes doesn't eclipse its source material by any means—it's probably only essential if you're already a Kelela diehard. Paired with the original, it at least makes for a good holdover until an official debut LP, which is slated to appear sometime this year. As a brief look at Kelela playing with genres we've yet to hear, however, Remixes is sufficient enough.
