Diamat – Being Remixed
What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? More importantly, what happens when a bunch of leading mixers, well known for remixing each others work, collaborate on an album together? Oh, and then said album is remixed by the rest of the electronica community, the leading lights of re-mixing if you will?
Being Remixed is both the answer and the question here, it being the remix album of Being Is The Sum Of Appearing by Diamat. The original Being Is The Sum Of Appearing album was conceived and created by Attilio Bruzzone (port-royal), Andrea Zangrandi and Christos Garmpidakis (Dergar). These re-imaginings come from the likes of Worm Is Green, Ambidextrous and Ruxpin. The result is both high concept and enjoyable. I’d liken it to Chris Nolan’s film Inception where we’re allowed to enter someone’s dream within someone else’s dream. The movie was a visual treat. This is an aural one. The film was also that rarest of things, a Hollywood blockbuster that treats its audience intelligently. Some, no doubt, would have been totally lost – minds blown. Maybe they just went along for the ride? But what a ride! Others would have enjoyed the philosophical and political points being posed. This record is exactly the same. Dreams within dreams. Plans within plans. Are we out yet? Do we care?
Like Inception, Being Remixed isn’t perfect. There are ….problems. For example, is it quite wise to open with a 10 minute version of the already epic ‘Misunderstood Pt 1’. A Bruzzone indulgence perhaps? Just as Inception was Nolan’s. This is a knowingly self-aware sequencing decision. It’s a remix album which will have a niche audience anyway so we’ll do what we like. Happily, there is much to like here. Sketch Crush mix turns ‘Painkillers’ into OMD’s ‘Electricity’…for Sega Megadrive. The wiz and swirl of port-royals signature work is recaptured by the Miracle Boy reworking of ‘I can love you only if you don’t love me’ before shunting into the dance floor.
Being Remixed is loads of fun. Like we’re at a club which isn’t quite sure if it’s trance or house and in the end of course, we don’t care. Yet Being Remixed isn’t really Diamat. It’s everyone else’s understanding of Diamat. Mr Nolan, I loved your film but dreams don’t look like that – something of a drawback in a movie about dreams. Diamat doesn’t sound like this but in the end it doesn’t matter. The unstoppable force just stopped and the immovable object… well, it moved.
I have a little totem to help me decide when I’m out or still immersed. It’s called a CD.
It’s still spinning.