Australian garage punk trio Bloods unveiled their third full-length studio album, Together, Baby! back in September, and it is the kind of playful sound that reminds me of the wonderful Be Your Own Pet (who recently reunited and just released a new single).
BOSS is a thrilling assertion of riot grrrl energy that culminates in vocalist MC’s shouty performance transitioning into a joyful celebration of being female and in charge.
On 5 May, Bloods will release the expanded Together, Baby! Deluxe edition, which will feature two new remixes of tracks from the album alongside an acoustic version of Southern Light. One is a remix of ¡Radical!, by Ernesto el Defensor, and the other is the remix of BOSS that we experience here.
The remix of BOSS is a transformation of the original as Jonathan Snipes, of experimental hip hop outfit clipping., gives the track a makeover. The result is a grimy, post-punk influenced slice of taught electronic grunge. Guitars and tight 909-powered drums give this remix of BOSS the feeling of determined, sharp elbows. Elsewhere, Snipes deploys heavy reverb and unexpected clipped edits to give this an immersive, disorientating feel.
Describing the process of remixing the song, Snipes says:
“I love it when a great rock song can become a great dance track. Taking loose and raw punk performances and hard quantizing them to a grid is missing the point in the most glorious way. Chaotic energy ordered in metronomic time. The tyranny of techno imposed on lawlessness. I tried to add my own flavors of chaos and disorder, using some very unpredictable Max/MSP patches which take over the sequencing of the remix from time to time. All the sounds you hear in the remix are from the original track, with the exception of the Roland TR-909 drum machine. How could I resist? It's dance music, after all.”
To which front-woman MC adds:
“…I’ve been such a fan of clipping.’s approach to music making, and to hear Jonathan put his stamp on our sound was the collab you never knew you needed! It’s just so damn fun and cinematic — it feels like Michelle Rodriguez walking away from an explosion or a Michelle Rodriguez led car chase scene. If this song were a person, it would be Michelle Rodriguez.”
The combination of styles here reminds me of Evil Nine, whose late 00s jaunt into punky territory produced the wonderfully kitsch album They Live!, followed by an absolute gem of a mixtape in the form of Root Of All Evil. It makes me nostalgic for a time when there was a little more friction and tension at the intersection and overlap of genres.
Anyhow, for the moment we can put that nostalgia aside, and revel in the creativity on display here, both in Bloods’ original, and Snipes’ wonderful remix.
