MIXOLOGY

MIXOLOGY

 

“He’s a Mixologist!!!!”

 

Screeched a lady in an adjacent booth at a well known restaurant about her husband to be. Often it is impolite to eavesdrop on a conversation but its impossible when the conversation in question stems from a rather raucous hen do. After some further discussion it emerged that a ‘Mixologist’ is a specialist cocktail maker…which only proves the point you learn something new every day. Needless to say the conversation continued along the lines of several puns related to what a Mixologist is good at doing and what he is good at doing it with.

 

Taking nothing away from a Mixologist it does prove the point that there are many ways in which something simple can be made to sound beautiful and in some respects very intense or equally where you add too much and ruin the essence of a particular drink or meal. There is an innate skill to be able to get things right and create something beautiful.

 

So it is with this ‘remix’ of Special K by Timo Maas.

 

 

The original song written by Placebo centred around the powerful addictive effect of love for another person but Timo Maas turned it into a soaring dance number. By adding a pounding bass line and pitching the lyrics a tone or two higher the song becomes a dreamy 8 minute study in escapism whilst retaining the message that eventually gravity will bring the listener down to earth but until then just enjoy the moment you find yourself in. Arguably the remix is longer than it needs to be but like all good dance tracks it keeps you going and adds just that extra bit of joy to a great original.

 

It doesn’t always follow though that a remix has to be a complete change of genre sometimes just changing the way a song is played creates a whole new emotion from a classic. Take this acoustic version of Don’t Look Back in Anger.

 

 

By stripping away all the production, electric guitars and swagger so typical of Oasis from the ‘Whats The Story’ era in the mid-nineties there is just a simple heartfelt love song sung in its purest form. True to say it is still a classic and it is one of those songs that has a life of its own but like all good ‘Mixologists’ by taking away the unnecessary there is the essential wonderful basics and that is no bad thing.

 

Naturally you have to be a good ‘Mixer’ to get it right and lots of people are sure to say there are better examples but the problem with ‘Mixing’ is that it is subjective, changing something people are used to is very often hit and miss, for every good cocktail there are apparently a lot of bad cocktails… wisdom imparted by a rather sozzled ‘hen’ from said booth. The loud laughter that followed suggests that it was well placed advice.

 

Having said that sometimes what you don’t think will work really does and on a topical note who can forget this collaboration by the Lightning Seeds, Frank Skinner and David Baddiel. It probably wouldn’t have worked in any other space and time but everything just fell into place and that is what collaboration and mixing really needs, time space and serendipity.

 

 

What then is the art of a good ‘Mix’… according to the bride to be it’s the ‘creative use of booze’ (Slightly changed wording. The correct wording wasn’t safe to print), interpret that any way you like but it boils down to whatever you want it to be or you could just ask Mixologist!!!