Track of the Day: The Grind - The Braeke [part 1 & 2] (Claap! & Santana Remix)

This week we were very fortunate to share a host of fresh sounds from our French guests Claap! & Santana through their eclectic, summertime mixtape. The production partnership has born the fruit of some wonderful works and it was tough to pick one from the tracklist to focus on at first but I settled on this 11 minute and change opus called 'The Braeke'. In effect it's actually 2 remixes built into one track and provides a really unique take on the conventional remix approach, and as we've happily come to learn convention is something that these two try to avoid.

The Grind - The Braeke [part 1 & 2] (Claap! & Santana Remix)

As I mentioned before the track is in effect 2 remixes in one. The first half/remix focuses primarily on a natural afro-beat rhythm while the second portion dives a bit deeper into the experimental realms of sound design. The opening bars of the track feature some nice ambient shakers and a heavily phased, filtered cowbell that slowly peels back to reveal it's upper frequencies while panned hand drums rattle around the soundscape. The egg shakers are really well produced and make as though they could have been a field recoding of some early morning rain. The deep bass line that bubbles forth is fantastic and the stabbing saw wave synth that cuts in has some nice automation on the cutoff and resonance adding a lot of dynamic character to the groove. There's a lot of push and pull in the layers throughout the composition which reflects on CLAAP!'s production prowess and attention to detail and variance in his arrangements. The softly filtered xylophone that comes in just before the 3 minute mark is cherry on top for me, as it really brightens up what was seemingly more of a deeper vibe in the initial portion of the song. The first breakdown gets interesting as a modulated drone kicks in while heavily chopped up vocals supplement the rhythm and provide a solid transition into the next bridge. Some great noise FX pads are placed intermittently in the composition that really provide some great texture and spread out the frequencies nicely via some delay and panning oscillators.From my interview earlier this week with Sylvain aka CLAAP! he had this to say about the production:"Basically, we were messing around the track, finding ideas and stuff at the early stage of the remix. And we came up with two main elements for the remix: an afro vibe with percussions that you can hear until roughly 6:00 and a very interesting noisy sound with great texture that you can hear after. Since it would have been too much to have them both play at the same time we decided to make a long remix in two distinct parts: the afro part and the deeper, darker part. Depending on the crowd and on the DJ’s personal taste, one can play the first part only or start in the middle and play the second part only, or play the full track as a long hypnotic trip."Check out the original as well, as it brings in those old school acid house vibes:If you haven't had a chance yet dive into our latest guest mix below:Enjoy,MR PUZL