Another great A/B listen, comparing and contrasting an original and its remix. First came “Tapeloop,” a brief, lofi, understated groove from Hector Plimmer. It’s high impact low impact, modest moves in service of a greater mood. There’s a brief keyboard riff, echoing lightly above a smothered, raspy handclap of a beat. Occasionally it pitches up or down. And then it slinks into the shadows. It’s called “Tapeloop,” and it’s barely a minute and a half long, so you hit repeat.
To the remixer’s credit, when Kidkanevil goes to work, he manages to augment and add, dissect and course correct, without ever losing what made the original so compelling. He glitches it out in a manner that reflects the original’s surface tension. He adds vocals that sound like someone doing hyperspeed play-by-play on the production. He injects and carves, but never loses the balance that made Plimmer’s source audio function. Kidkanevil plays Jenga with the building blocks, yet the material never even teeters. Not every remix needs to pay tribute to the original, but when it’s done right, it helps you understand the original.
“Tapeloop” originally appeared as the fifth track on Plimmer’s late 2019 album, Next to Nothing. The Kidkanevil remix is part of an ongoing series that has included Alex Harley, Matthew Herbert, Elkka, and Bex Burch.
Album originally posted at hector-plimmer.bandcamp.com. More from Plimmer, who is based in London, at soundcloud.com/hectorplimmer, twitter.com/HectorPlimmer. More from Kidkanevil, aka Gerard Roberts, at kidkanevilofficial.com.