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Eclectic remixes of Steven Wilson’s first solo album from 2009
Steven Wilson has recently issued two remix albums based on The Harmony Codex, his seventh solo album – Harmonic Distortion and Harmonic Divergence. It’s fifteen years since the release of Nsrgnts Rmxs, a remixed version of Steven Wilson’s first solo album Insurgentes (2008). The vowels were removed from ‘Steven Wilson – Insurgentes Remixes’ to create the title, rendered on the front cover of the CD as STVN WILSON NSRGNTS ↑ RMXS. Sensibly, the CD spine provided the full title including vowels.
A remix competition was launched in January 2009 for the track ‘Abandoner’. Wilson chose eight of the resulting mixes and the winner, Łukasz Langa, was selected in a public vote that ended in May 2009. A 12-inch single featured the first track from the CD, ‘Harmony Korine (David A. Sitek Magnetized Nebula Mix)’ and two remixes of ‘Only Child’ by Pat Mastelotto (drummer from King Crimson) that don’t appear on the CD but did appear on the digital download that was released later. Mastelotto also remixed ‘Abandoner’ which was available to download to inspire entrants to the remix competition.
Harmony Korine (David A. Sitek Magnetized Nebula Mix)
Harmony Korine is the first track on Insurgentes, remixed by David Andrew Sitek (from American rock band TV on the Radio) and Jneiro Jarel (American producer and DJ Omar Jarel Gilyard). This remix replaces the loose-limbed, relaxed drumming of Gavin Harrison from Porcupine Tree in the verse with trip hop rhythms and rasping tenor sax (Stuart Bogie) and trumpet (Todd Smith). In the second verse, the level of distortion on the backing track is pushed to the limit so that the sound almost breaks up, giving the song a more intense feel. But the most radical change is in the chorus, where the chord structure beneath the vocals is completely changed, giving it a more optimistic feel. Towards the end of the track, there’s an additional resonant synth line which drifts downwards to mark the end of the song. A subtle but satisfying remix.
Get All You Deserve (Dälek Mix)
Get All You Deserve is track nine on Insurgentes, remixed by MC Dälek and Mike Manteca from American hip hop band dälek. This is the first of two remixes of this song, the second being by Fear Falls Burning (see below). This mix strips out the piano part from the first couple of minutes, and replaces it with mesmerising vocal samples, reminiscent of the multilayered backing vocals on the 1974 single I’m Not in Love by English art rock band 10cc. At around 2.00, Harrison’s drums are replaced by a resolute hip hop beat. In the chorus, Wilson’s voice, drenched in echo, is almost lost beneath the beat. From around 4.00, the song is largely instrumental, reaching a climax with military snare drums and heavy percussion flourishes. It continues in this style until near the end, unlike the original which features an unrelenting descent into noise. The song ends with a brief fade, with some of the piano motif from the original song. An evocative remix.
Abandoner (Engineers Mix)
Abandoner is track two on Insurgentes, remixed by British pop band Engineers, who were described on the record company website as ‘Kscope’s newest act’ at the time. This is the first of two remixes of the song, the second being the Danse Macabre mix by Łukasz Langa (see below). The most significant change is the addition of piano chords in the opening section, and an extra piano motif at around 2:50 which can be heard again later in the track but much lower in the mix. This has the effect of grounding the track, as does the extra guitar in the rhythmic instrumental section from around 2.10. The vocals are given much clearer definition, starting on the left-hand side of the mix with an added hi-hat pattern, then moving to the right, giving a more intimate but less dream-like feel to the track.
Salvaging (Pat Mastelotto Mix)
Salvaging is track three on Insurgentes, remixed by drummers Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson) and Pat Manske (Rhythmic Statues). On his website, Mastelotto says that he changed the time signature of the song (which he refers to as ‘Salvager’) from 4/4 to 5/4 and slowed it down so that he could bring the vocals closer together; in his view, ‘the lyrics were too far apart in Steven’s version.’ Mastelotto has fun with this mix, as he does with the others (see below). His version begins with eerie electronic noises, played on the theremin by Pamelia Kurstin, which gradual resolve into the opening chord of the original. Thunderously funky bass parts, played by Markus Reuter on ‘an abundance of basses’, soon appear. As promised, the vocals are much closer together than on the original. From 1.30 there are brief additional string flourishes and some wayward bass lines. The instrumental break from around 2.50 adds ‘Turkish Strings’, provided by Cenk Eroglu. As the instrumental section morphs into the quieter section with orchestral strings, Mastelotto adds additional vocals, and an energetic percussion part which completely changes the contemplative nature of the original. A high melody is added by what sounds like a theremin. Unlike some other remixers on this album, he embraces the ‘noise’ section at the end, removing the heavy drums from the original and replacing them with a bass line that spirals upwards forever. A suitably dystopian ending to a richly fascinating version.
Not content with one version, in 2012 on his double CD Recidivate, Mastelotto released a five-minute version called Salvaging Remix Mash under his own name, a hybrid of the Mixes 2 and 3.
Abandoner (Danse Macabre Mix)
Remixed by Polish musician and software engineer Łukasz Langa. As a classically trained pianist, Langa may well have taken the title of his mix from Danse Macabre (1874) an orchestral piece by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. Wilson himself listened to all 200 or so entries to the remix competition, of which this was the winner. The mini website, hosted by Wilson’s record label Kscope, allowed entrants to download individual parts (or ‘stems’) from the original song, including ‘behemoth guitars’ and ‘evil piano.’
Langa brings his classical piano skills to this mix, completely transforming the track into an epic piano ballad. It begins with a lovely deep synth intro, soon joined by insistent piano chords and complex percussion rhythms. Wilson’s introverted vocals work well with the completely different mix, sounding more confident in this context. The track builds to a magnificent climax until at around 3.00 there’s a lovely contemplative piano passage with syncopated, rolling drums and a free-flowing bass line, and at 4.15 a melodic string part is added. The distinctive sound of a vibraslap (a percussion instrument) at around 4.30 announces the final, climactic section. A lovely, powerful remix – it’s easy to see why it won the competition.
Get All You Deserve (Fear Falls Burning Mix)
Remixed by Dirk Serries (aka ambient musician Fear Falls Burning). The first two minutes of the song are only subtly different from the original. There is more echo on the piano, and processing is applied to Wilson’s voice to make it feel less intimate, as if heard in a distant dream. At around 3.00, the track seems to be ending, as what sounds like a final chord is restated several times. Unlike the Dälek Mix, the descent into noise from the original track is retained, but without Harrison’s powerful drumming. This ambient version contrasts with the other tracks of this album but retains the essence of the original.
Only Child (Pat Mastelotto Mix 3 and Mix 1)
Only Child is track seven on Insurgentes. These two remixes appear on the B side of the 12-inch single, with Harmony Korine (David A. Sitek Magnetized Nebula Mix) on the A-side. On his website, Mastelotto quotes an email from Wilson asking him to keep the original vocals from the song and to,
‘reinterpret the song [as] if you’d been producing it. And keep it twisted!’
Mastelotto’s response was ‘to really go nuts’ and, with the help of bassist Markus Reuter, superimpose a new meter on the track by breaking it down into its smallest rhythmic elements. So, a song in 4/4 at 100 bpm would become a song in 6/8 at 75 bpm. Mastelotto originally planned to do three remixes for every song on the album, hence the fact that there were three versions of the song.
Despite Wilson asking him not to remove his vocals, Mastelotto did exactly that on Mix 3. The only thing that the original track and Mix 3 appear to have in common is that both have a prominent bassline. But whereas the original has a smooth, majestic bassline that gives the song a sense of inevitability (as many of The Cure’s basslines do) the remix has a series of jerky frenetic lines which don’t use the same notes as the original. Mix 3 has a fractured structure, with several brief breaks that add to the unsettling feel. At around 4.00, there’s an interesting rhythmic effect, sometimes described as an ‘auditory illusion,’ where it is playing at half speed. Mastelotto used similar auditory illusions when playing drums for King Crimson, as on the track ‘Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream’ from Thrak (1995) in which he and the band’s other drummer, Bill Bruford at one point play in two different time signatures at the same time, as Bruford explained to Trevor Cox in the BBC Radio 4 documentary Auditory Illusions in September 2019 (full disclosure: the author of this Blog produced the programme while still working for the BBC.)
Mastelotto’s Mix 1 is equally radical and disjointed. It begins with what sounds like an ending, a very low bass note (similar in timbre to the low note that ends ‘Happy’ from Storm Corrosion’s 2012 album of the same name, a collaboration between Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth). In the Radio 4 documentary, Bruford told Cox that in King Crimson’s music, there was always ‘a sense of a threat of impending doom’, and Mastelotto creates that mood here. The original track appears at 0.25 but it is destroyed after a few seconds by an explosion. There’s another explosion at around 1.05 and the track falls apart on another few occasions until finally we hear a snatch of a human voice which is sampled and used as a human beatbox. Wilson used the same technique on ‘Actual Brutal Facts’ (The Harmony Codex). The track ends with a Floydian guitar solo. Although the track is very dark and dystopian, there’s a strong impression that Mastelotto is having fun being so subversive.
Abandoner – Pat Mastelotto Mix
The mini website set up for the remix competition included free downloads of the Engineers’ remix and the Pat Mastelotto mix of ‘Abandoner’ to inspire entrants. The Engineers’ remix is track three on Nsrgnts Rmxs (see above), but the Mastelotto mix was never released elsewhere. It opens with shimmering guitar, and a new guitar part. The rhythmic breathing that appears at 0.40 is another technique that Wilson used on The Harmony Codex, on the opening track, ‘Inclination.’ At 1.00 a new, dirty-sounding bassline appears. At 1.20, the original Steven Wilson vocal tries to break into the track. The grungy, King Crimson-like backing track continues regardless of Wilson’s attempts, and for a while the two elements seem to exist in completely different musical universes, resolutely ignoring each other. Then at 3.00, the high synth parts of the original finally succeed in breaking into the song. Of the eight lines of lyrics of the original song, five appear in the remix. It’s significant that the words, ‘I am restless, I am lost’ are left out as they are an apt description of the remix – Mastelotto appears to be having fun again! The track ends with a fairground organ that seems to come from a fever dream. Many years later, in his short story The Harmony Codex on which the album of the same name is loosely based, Wilson describes his protagonist Jamie imagining he sees a ‘magnificent fairground carousel’ which plays ‘queasy pipe-organ music.’ Could there be an unconscious link in Wilson’s mind?