YOLANDA BE COOL & AZARI & III TAKE ON ACE OF BASE

There's little doubt that when it comes to EDM, the Swedes are born with the natural X factor. From Abba to Avicii, time and time again they've showed the world how to fashion an ear-warming melody, forging timeless tracks that pass from generation to generation like freckles or webbed toes.

Up there on our list of all-time favorites is Ace of Base's “All That She Wants,” whose poppy reggae skank about wanting another baby hit Number 2 on the US charts back in 1993. Revived in 2010 via an edit by Norwegian disco king Todd Terje, under the moniker Chuck Norris (and we all know very time Chuck Norris blinks, a baby is born), the track finally gets the radical remake it deserves.

Turning it into a brooding modern creeper is dream team pairing, Aussie duo Yolanda Be Cool and ex-Azari & III vocalists Starving Yet Full and Fritz Helder. Label mates on Dim Mak, who are releasing the track, part one includes the original alongside mixes from Human Life and Walker & Royce (who provide a vocal and dub version), while part two features further mixes from Wordlife, Plastic Plates and Go Freek – a complete package with everything from low slung disco to high energy electro that's sure to send dancefloors of all persuasion into fits of paroxysm.

We asked both twosomes wassup...

YOLANDA BE COOL

Why Ace of Base? Why now?
“Well, why not? We grew up listening to this track in the '90s and just felt like it could have a refresh for the nowies. We associate it with a whole heap of good things, like getting drunk for the first time, kissing girls after school and basically turning from a child into a naughty teenager! The original is also very slow so to get it sounding good at house speed was quite a challenge. We ended up just going for a low-slung 98bpm groover. Five years ago we wouldn't really be playing such a broad range of tempos in a single set, but now we basically go into a set with no rules. It’s way more fun like this.”

How did you hook up with Starving Yet Full and Fritz Helder? Did you have any inkling of Azari & IIi's split when you worked with them?
“Well, we are both signed to Dim Mak in the US and we played the Dim Mak pool party together at WMC in Miami last year. We had this idea to do the cover, but wanted to flip the vocals really hard to combat the fact that the track is so iconic and almost in the 'no go' zone due to how big it got. But as soon as we met the guys in Miami we knew they were the boys for the job, and when we asked them what they thought of the idea. They were down to do it straight away. It was way before the Azari split so we had no idea this was happening. We were so sad to hear of the news being such fans of the group.”

What's been the initial reaction to the track?
“We have been overwhelmed with the reaction so far. I mean it's such a weird track we had no idea how it would be received. The Dim Mak Soundcloud is already up to around 50K plays and we have had a wide range of people reach out to say how much they are digging the track, from my mom's friend to Danny Daze!”

All that she wants is another baby. What do you really want right now?
“Well, every time we turn on the internet we get updated about how good a time everyone is having at BPM [Festival] so I guess a return ticket to Playa Del Carmen would up there right about now.”

What are your other guilty pleasure tracks?
“Besides every single dirtybird release, the new Beyonce album is actually pretty damn cool. We've also been listening to a lot of classic stuff like Depeche Mode, and some folk stuff like Rodriguez to break up the constant 4/4 club stuff we are forever surrounded by.”

SYF & FRITZ HELDER (AZARI & III)

Were you fans of the Ace of Base original before this project?
SYF: “Absolutely, reminds me of my childhood, running around by Lake Tanganyika back in Burundi. This song was huge in Africa!”

How do you approach covering such a well-known track to make it your own?
SYF: “We didn't really wanna think to much about it, we knew we had to respect certain aspects of the song but we also took a freestyle approach, seeing ourselves listening to it again in a more contemporary milieu; would kids these days dance to this as I jammed to it in my childhood? I think yes...”

Do you have any other favorite cover tracks that have surpassed the original or brought it to your attention when previously you might not have listened to it?
SYF: “Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You' did it for me. Sorry Ms. Parton but that took the cake!”

Azari & III is no more. Can you tell us anymore about why the split happened?
SYF: “I would have to refer that question to Dinamo Azari & Alixander III (smirk).”

We heard you recently performed your own material at Dalston Superstore in London. What is this new project and when will its fruits be ripe for the picking?
SYF: “We are still nursing the project at the moment, it's a project we have slowly been working on. There are still a lot of loose ends to tie but come end of this year, you should be able to hear a couple of singles out and about.”