Remastering and remixing find common ground on Du Soleil, an expanded reissue recently uploaded by artist offthesky to the always excellent netlabel restingbell.net. Originally released by Atmoworks in 2007, the four-track set has been remastered and, in its new edition, extended by three remixes, one each by Darren Mcclure, Billy Gomberg, and offthesky himself. The original music is a slow, evocative mix of light textures. The remixes bring those textures into focus by emphasizing contrasting fixations: in Mcclure’s a lovely foregrounding of guitar, which melts into the background patterns thanks to backward masking and other blood-in-the-ear effects (MP3); in Gomberg’s the background bleached to an industrial buzz that slowly builds to a momentous drone (MP3); and in offthesky’s self-mix an ethereal pleasure, all warped bells, gossamer figments, and dark angelic whispers (MP3).
Get the full release at restingbell.net. More on offthesky, aka Jason Corder, at offthesky.com. More on Mcclure at myspace.com/darrenmcclure. And more on Gomberg at fraufraulein.com/billy.
I like his work. He’s Colorado-based, so I’ve had the pleasure of seeing him live a few times. He had a few neato generative sound installations at this year’s Communikey fest.