'EROTIC DISCOURSE (DENSE & PIKA REMIX)' (BEST REMIX)

It’s painting cliché upon cliché (always use a double coat) to start our best remix entry with the threadbare saying about how you should never touch a classic. But this case seems doubly shut and closed in the case of Bobby Peru’s ‘Erotic Discourse’, Paul Woolford's 2006 classic piece of minimal mentalism, which worked precisely because its brutal simplicity had virtually no limits in its appeal.

Yet somehow Dense & Pika, aka Alex Jones and Chris Spero (otherwise known as Glimpse), have masterfully pulled off updating this warping cascade of drums. Perhaps it's because ‘Erotic Discourse’ is precisely the kind of track that inspired the clank of iron and sparks that their own releases on Hotflush conjure up.

Friends with Woolford, the idea for the remix arose organically. And contrary to the common wisdom above, they tell us that they “really enjoyed the challenge of remixing such a seminal record. We knew from the off it would be pointless trying to compete with the original in weirdness and originality so we just tried to put our own slant on it with our own production techniques”.

The result is done with surgical precision, a bodily overhaul of expertly executed nips and tucks leaving the original features intact while adding the buff production frame of modern day techno. It was anything but a simple operation though.

“It took absolutely ages,” the pair admit on the lengthy process of working on something that they regard as a “timeless track written by a complete maverick”. Road-tested in their live sets, it went through over 30 incarnations before finding the right mechanically enhanced, super cyborg synthesis of old and new. “We kept on listening to the original and then listening to our mix and then scrapping it and starting again. Also, we don't do remixes unless they are special projects we are keen to get involved in, so it was really important to us that we did Wooly, Hotflush and the original justice.” Gavel down. Justice is served.

OTHER NOMINEES
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DJRUM 'DAM (AKKORD REMIX)'
LONDON GRAMMAR 'HEY NOW (SASHA REMIX)'
JOKER & GINZ 'PURPLE CITY (SWINDLE REMIX)'
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE 'SUIT & TIE (FOUR TET REMIX)'
KIWI 'THE MARA (DUKE DUMONT EDIT)'
JUNGLE 'THE HEAT (JOY O REMIX)'
WAZE & ODYSSEY VS R KELLY 'BUMP & GRIND'
ZARA MCFARLANE 'MOVE (ATJAZZ REMIX)'