Track of the Day: Tiga – Don’t Break My Heart (Deetron Remix)
Track of the Day: Tiga – Don’t Break My Heart (Deetron Remix)
It's time for our final write up of the week from this weeks guest mix artist Devoe. Today he gives us his thoughts on his mash up of Deetrons remix of Dont Break my Heart by Tiga and a remix he did of 'Thrones' from fellow LAMP family member Atlas Boda. Here is what he had to say about them.
Tiga – Don’t Break My Heart (Deetron Remix)/Atlas Boda – Throne (Jeff Devoe Remix)
Devoe:It’s been 7 years since Tiga has put out new music. A lot has changed since 2009, but what hasn’t is that Tiga still makes great music. “Don’t Break My Heart was the lead single on Tiga’s third album last year (No Fantasy Required on Ninjatune’s Counter Records). With the release of the single came a slew of remixes and in my opinion none of them even came close to Deetron’s remix. The track leads in with some drums, pads, and arpeggiated synths…always a winning combination. The breakdown smashes the intro into pieces and almost goes silent until Tiga’s pleading vocal of “Don’t break my heart…” comes looping in. Such a great way to get the listener’s attention. After Deetron’s got your ears perked, a delightfully dirty bassline bounds over the track. The bassline sounds like your Speak N’ Spell that you dropped in the pool a couple times trying to sing an evil nursery rhyme. It is wonderful. The drums drop in and it is off to magic dance land. This track is so simple and yet so fun. Deetron’s remix is a case study in how to make simple, effective dancefloor killers.For the last track on the mix I chose my own remix of Atlas Boda’s “Throne”. Atlas Boda is a UK-based member of our LAMP family and has been producing some great music. When Alex (Mr Puzl…aka the LAMP head honcho) sent the stems around to see if anyone wanted to take a stab at a remix, I heard the vocals and jumped at it! The melody and tone of the vocals are what really got me. They sound to me like young Matthew McConaughey is singing them. A bit of a southern drawl, very mysterious words that would probably take a couple whiskeys to get him to tell you the true meaning, and a great soulful swagger to the cadence. I picked out the phrases “Tear your pages out, so I can pour right in. Conjure something good, specifically unknown” as the vocals for the hook of my remix (at least that’s what they sound like they say!). They absolutely sound like somebody is reading from a spell book. I started my remix by looping this phrase and adding the elements around them. I rarely build tracks around vocals, but it was necessary here. I gave the vocals some space with long tailed reverb, delays and some reverse reverb as well. This phrase repeats in the breakdown as the background synths wind down under them, then a big 2-step influenced bassline takes the track off the line. I bring in some of Atlas’ verse as the track bumps along and then allow the synths to creep back in to lead into another breakdown. Each of the breakdowns has this spiraling synth sound that adds to the tension of the track moving towards the drop. It was a lot of fun to work on this track. Please check out Atlas Boda’s music, you won’t regret it! Also, look out for the original, this remix, and some others to be released sometime this year through the LAMP channels.That is it boys and girls. I hope you have enjoyed my mix and I hope you have enjoyed taking a closer look at some of the mixes that are featured in it. It’s really a pleasure to get to reflect on a mix in a deeper way and I thank LAMP for allowing me to do so. It was a real treat. By the way if you’d like to see me actually do some live mixing I’ll be playing for SHINE on 6/12/16 at OSSO in downtown L.A. party starts at 1pm! Peace.