As SPIN’s Brandon Soderberg points out in his review of Deadmau5’s >album title goes here<, the reason that the EDM figurehead’s music persists hinges upon the fact that his sound is surprisingly tasteful. Should you have any doubts about that proclamation, cede your next seven minutes to the Mau5’s satisfyingly slight remix of “Ice Age” by How to Destroy Angels. The original song is about as minimal as a Trent Reznor-authored affair comes: Mariqueen Maandig coos smokily atop a score of acoustic plucks and strums while tiny doses of feedback are only a reminder that electricity is running through the room. The prevailing beauty and tension therein are well preserved in Joel Zimmerman’s revision. Rather than strap all of that subtlety to a four-four-pulse, he opens with crackling, glitchified beatwork that calls to mind early DNTEL or Boom Bip — clattering bells and blips, reversed instrumental snippets, a winding electric guitar figure — and simply rides it out, building slowly across the song’s considerable length.
Deadmau5 shared the song via Twitter:
soundcloud.com/fuckmylife/htd… arts n crafts day. fb.me/1nMAifeV7
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) December 2, 2012
Also Read
NIN’s The Downward Spiral at 30
Listen to How to Destroy Angels’ “Ice Age (deadmau5 remix)” here:
