Brooklyn/LA synthwave duo Collasping Scenery have revealed two new remixes of The Grey Cardinal, which is lifted from their acclaimed album ‘Stress Positions’ out now (order). You can take a listen to Cold Cave’s reworked version of the track via YouTube below. Collapsing Scenery’s Reggie Debris says, “Cold Cave is a kindred spirit. Wes’s take on the track slices and reorganizes the vocals into an entirely new arrangement, all driven by a charging big-beat rave track that pulses and chugs along, conjuring images of strobing lights and sweaty dance floors.”
The band also shared a remix of The Grey Cardinal done by Ryan Ross. Check it out via YouTube below. On the collaboration Debris says, “Ryan Ross (formerly of Panic at the Disco) is an old friend and compatriot. His remix entirely comprises deep and obscure samples, layered and pitched and time-stretched to create an entirely new song underpinning the original vocal. It’s a sort of labour intensive musical collage and it gives an entirely new life and feeling to the melody and lyrics.”
Both remixes are available on all streaming platforms to add to your favourite playlists. The two new remixes follow up recently reworked versions of Bush Mama Blues by Money Mark, Forbidding Forbidding by Alex Greenwald, I Never Knew by Cibo Matto’s Miho & Tim Kinsella and Angkar by Black Bananas. All singles are available now at Spotify.
Collapsing Scenery is the meeting of two fertile and febrile minds, Don De Vore (Ink & Dagger, Lilys, The Icarus Line, Amazing Baby) and Reggie Debris. Collapsing Scenery straddles the gap between music, art, film and politics, seamlessly moving between each with the same ease at which they traverse the globe, soaking up experiences and immersing themselves in different cultures.
Since they formed in 2013 “under a pall of paranoia and disgust” they haven’t stopped moving. Recent collaborations include Jamaican dancehall legend Ninjaman, Beastie Boys producer/collaborator Money Mark, and no-wave pioneer James Chance. The band also has remixes out or on the way from Genesis P-Orridge (Psychic TV, Throbbing Gristle), Jennifer Herrema (Royal Trux), Uniform, Youth Code, Brian DeGraw (Gang Gang Dance), and more.
A conversation with them recalls stories of recently recording a ‘goth-dancehall’ track in Jamaica, sailing their sound system into Britain for a series of shows, visiting occupied territories in Palestine on fact-finding missions, recording their debut album on a remote ranch in Texas and soaking up rays in Corsica – and that’s in the first five minutes.
The band’s debut album ‘Stress Positions’ is a glorious collision of futurist electro, glacial goth tones, techno, post-punk and chillwave recorded using analogue electronics: samplers, step sequencers, synths and drum machines. Aesthetically it initially recalls the early pioneering synth-punk of bands such as Human League, Screamers and The Normal, when the most forwarding thinking punks looked to the twenty-first century. Dig deeper however and it reveals an articulate and highly politicised collection that’s far from mired being in nostalgia for the recent past. Quite the opposite: ‘Stress Positions’ is a forward-looking album with strong state-of-the-world lyrical content. In the tradition of so many defining electro duos – whether Suicide, Pet Shop Boys or Underworld – Collapsing Scenery’s architecture is entirely of their own creation. They’ve built their own world and live in it. The album also features contributions from UK grime artist Jammz, award wining Palestinian hip hop group DAM, LA shoegazer Tamaryn and several other likeminded collaborators.
Collapsing Scenery offer a new vision for how a modern band can be. They’re not even a band – they’re curators of a series of planet-planning events, expressions, exhibitions, albums, installations, journeys, adventures and parties, all operating outside of the confines of the tired traditional industry.
Collapsing Scenery are artistic explorers pushing into bold new futures, then. Join them.
‘Stress Positions’ track list
1. I Never Knew
2. New World Borders (feat. DAM)
3. All The Way Alive
4. Years Of Lead (Are Back Again)
5. Sisyphus Of The Negev
6. The Grey Cardinal
7. Queen Of Proofs (feat. Jammz)
8. Forbidding Forbidding
9. Angkar
10. Of Two Minds
11. Bush Mama Blues
12. St. Seraphim Redux
13. The Blue And The Black
14. Kill The Indian Save The Man (feat. Tamaryn)
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