Three new remix contests are, if not a study in contrasts, worth looking at for their distinguishing features. What follows is a brief, and far from complete, overview. Feel free to bypass the observations, and just download the source material (and, as they’re posted, the entrants’ remixes). All three provide free MP3 downloads of the raw goods: the first, a single track; the second, its 10 constituent parts; the third, relatively brief excerpts of various extended wholes. The first contest hinges on a work of ambient spaciousness, with echoes of Erik Satie’s elemental piano lines. The second and third ask participants to transform something into electronic music: the second subject is, in its initial state, a fairly generic pop song, but several of its individual layered tracks, laid bare courtesy of the contest, have a delicate quality all their own; the third is entirely spoken word, but of course that’s just the beginning.
And the contests are as follows: (1) The first is sponsored by 12K, Taylor Deupree‘s record label, to celebrate the CD release of his recent collaboration with composer Kenneth Kirschner, post_piano 2 (12k.com/term/postpiano2). (2) The second focuses on a track, “Ever (Foreign Flag),” off a new album by the pop group Team Sleep, whose name may be familiar from a song they had on the soundtrack to The Matrix: Reloaded, and whose lead singer, Chino Moreno, may be familiar from his other band, the Deftones (teamsleepremix.com). (3) The third is sponsored by Penguin, the publisher, which has posted online some 26 samples from its audiobooks; among the reader/writer combos made available are Brian Cox and HG Wells (Time Machine), David Carradine and Jack Kerouac (On the Road) and Richard E. Grant and Bram Stoker (Dracula), sure to be a favorite (penguinremixed.co.uk).
As for prizes, 12k dangles the opportunity to appear as part of a free compilation download; Team Sleep’s promotional partners will provide DJ equipment, sporting goods, a cellphone, and more; and Penguin will collect the top 10 tracks into a commercial (download-only, presumably) compilation, and give the winners 70 of its paperback classics, among other goodies. Readers, start your samplers…