Album Review : HEALTH - Disco 2
- Written by Paul Faller
With their second album, Get Color, HEALTH produced one of my personal favourite records of last year, so I was very interested to hear what sort of remixes would come out of it on Disco 2. Pretty good ones, as it turns out.
'Before Tigers' is the most popular source material here, getting three remixes in total - although all of them eschew the song's relentless drumbeat and focus on other elements. Gold Panda's take on the track is very much reminiscent of his own material, built on a laid-back beat and samples of the searing guitar noise that runs through the original track, while Blindoldfreak's remix closes out the album by splicing the track's vocal over a minimal, almost ambient backing before coming to a sweeping, cinematic finish. The CFCF Remix is my personal favourite of the three, however, providing a melodic, summery version that sounds a bit like the original song has been taken on a tropical vacation.
Get Color's lead single 'Die Slow' is also well represented - of the two remixes present, Tobacco's remix sticks closer to the source material, taking the song's already dancefloor-friendly sound and giving it a robo-funk makeover. Pictureplane's remix, on the other hand, is a percussion-heavy effort underpinned by a four-to-the-floor beat that seems taylor-made for splicing into DJ sets. Elsewhere, 'Severin' gets warped almost beyond recognition into by Small Black, becoming some sort of crazy videogame soundtrack mashup, 'In Heat' gets suitably funked-up by Javelin, and Salem manage to make the already-sinister 'In Violet' even more foreboding.
Crystal Castles also make their return after their hugely popular remix of 'Crimewave', and while their version of 'Eat Flesh' probably won't repeat that feat, it still manages to capture some of the chaos of the original track while mixing in Crystal Castle's trademark 8-bit blips and bleeps. Rounding out the collection are two remixes of 'Nice Girls' by Pictureplane and Little Loud, both of which struggle to represent the source material in any meaningful way - but they're both still pleasant, chilled out and perfectly listenable.
There is one new track on here, however - the ice-cold, slow-mo dance of 'USA Boys', which has been knocking about for a while as a free download and is probably the best thing on here. Largely eschewing the band's trademark noise, it's built around a staccato synth line and eerie, almost choral vocals, all washed over with echo to mesmerising effect. Is it a one-off experiment, or an indication a new direction for the band? We'll have to wait for the follow up to Get Color to discover that. But for now, Disco 2 serves its purpose well by providing a dose of HEALTH for those times when you want something a little easier on the ears than its source material.