Remix Romance, Vol. 1 & 2 (Expanded Edition)

by K. Ross HoffmanFollowing their North American reissue/revamp of Sally Shapiro's debut, Disco Romance, Toronto-based Paper Bag Records worked with the album's creators (producer Johan Agebjörn and the eponymous/pseudonymous singer) to put together not one but two sets of remixes, collecting several, though not all, previously existing mixes of the material and amassing a bounty of newly solicited versions. Given the recent emergence of 1980s electronic Italo disco as a newly hip commodity in the late 2000s, and Disco Romance's superlative and uncannily accurate re-creation of that style, it's not surprising that plenty of artists would jump at the chance to get involved and pay their respects, nor that a majority of them would turn in renditions that hew fairly close to the original templates. Most of the bigger names on Remix Romance, Vol. 1, including the Juan Maclean, Junior Boys, Lindstrøm, and the hotly tipped German producer Tensnake, offer remixes that carry their distinct fingerprints while upholding the sense of reverent allegiance to vintage electronic disco -- in other words, mixes that aren't too far removed from their own work; likewise Norway's Skatebård, whose relatively slight revision of album standout "He Keeps Me Alive" was apparently the inspiration for the whole project. Of these, Lindstrøm's typically excellent, typically epic, spacy take on "Time to Let Go" travels the farthest distance from its source material, gradually coaxing a loop of Shapiro cooing the song's title phrase into his swirling sea of popping, clavinet-like synths until her voice dominates the mix for several beatless, floating minutes, before the drums kick in again and the words become hopelessly muffled and indistinct. ... Read More...