“Making a song from alpha to omega is challenging,” A-Trak told Forbes last November. “It's from a song that has already worked in some capacity. You're taking a piece of something that is already catchy at in some way and you are decorating it with your production.” Perceiving the art of the remix as mere decoration might be anathema for its finest practitioners—be they François K., Ricardo Villalobos, or Puff— but in ’00s dance culture, A-Trak’s work and sensibilities served as an amped-up gateway for a new generation. Whether they checked his Soundcloud because of his connection to Kanye, because they loved southern hip-hop but not Ed Banger (or vice versa), or because of festival-friendly remixes of big indie rock acts, A-Trak’s work ethic blurred genre lines.
Culling a decade of remixes (with over 180 remix credits to his name), the lavish In the Loop 6x7” box set marks the first time that many of these digital-only remixes have been available in a physical format rather than Beatport-only download. The opening remix of Architecture in Helsinki’s “Heart It Races” (back when A-Trak still used the handle Trizzy) showed that from the start A-Trak had a knack for tearing down the mid-’00s walls between indie rock, mainstream hip-hop and electronic dance music. He takes Neptunes-type drum stutters, adds hip-hop backspins, a touch of steel pan and keeps the noxious yip of vocals intact, yet it all winds up sticking together.
Listening to all these remixes at once reveals that A-Trak often tried to please everyone, and his knack for picking over myriad genres often meant he felt the need to shoehorn everything in with each remix opportunity. His remix of Scanners’ “Bombs” is the equivalent of a dogpile: compressed rock guitar stabs, multiple sped-up vocal samples saying “drop,” rave synth swoops, voices minced until they become hiccups and then—why the hell not?—some cowbell dumped on for good measure, as if to make sure every box gets ticked.
His remix of Sébastian Tellier’s “Kilometer” seems similarly intent on touching on every trend in French dance music. A-Trak filters the kick down to a muffled throb redolent of “Around the World,” before bringing in a swell of disco symphonic strings and electro squelch, ranging from Ed Banger filter house to Daft Punk then back to Québécois disco. Similar sensibilities get applied to Phoenix’s “Trying to Be Cool” as he builds the opening keyboard figure into something bombastic. Visit a section of the song that doesn't have Thomas Mars’ telltale voice and one would be hard-pressed to distinguish it from any other track of the past decade.
What A-Trak delivers in spades is big, simple pleasures. For Boys Noize’s “Oh!,” he devastates with little more than that titular shout, vocodered growls, dancehall sirens and a feverish beat. He wasn’t the first one to have a go at the Yeah Yeah Yeahs late-period dance move of “Heads Will Roll,” but his remix is undeniable. Jacking up Nick Zinner’s tepid goth synth stabs until it’s brawny enough to fill a Coachella tent, he cuts away the band’s ineffective rock moves and instead replaces it all with leaner electronic components. A-Trak remakes Karen O into an icy electro queen, surrounding her with only the finest fromage: lasers, claps, 303 squelches and gaudy builds.
Give him the keys to another Brooklyn dancepunk band though—in this instance the Rapture— and the same tricks don’t pan out. On the piano-house-meets-gospel glory of “How Deep is Your Love,” A-Trak doesn't have the patience to give the song time to unfurl, shortening the song by a third, getting right to the dramatic build and then adding heaps of neon and rave lights. For the remarkable range of artists that In the Loop displays, A-Trak’s ability to mash together different genres and sounds into a crowd-pleasing amalgam also means that—much like a great night out—the distinguishing characteristics blur together into an undifferentiated mass.
