Chairlift and Passion Pit Swap Remixes: Hear the Tracks

Passion Pit and Chairlift met backstage at the catering tent at Bonnaroo and developed a fast friendship after hanging out at a secret garden party in England. "I actually played drums on 'Bruises' that night," recalls Passion Pit's drummer Nate Donmoyer. Now the two bands have turned their mutual admiration into music: Passion Pit remixed Chairlift's chipper "Bruises," and Chairlift took a hack at Passion Pit's squiggly "To Kingdom Come." Hear the results below and grab downloads after the jump.

Each band took a different approach to the remix project. "Ayad [Al Adhamy] and I started it on tour and luckily I had some time at home to finish it off and give it the Daft Punk 'Superheroes'-esque ending," Donmoyer says. Chairlift started "with the very simple idea of running every track through a Roland Space Echo," says bassist-keyboardist-drummer Patrick Wimberly. "After running all the tracks through the delay unit, there was this washy wall of sound to work with. From there, we start sampling Brazilian drums, claves, and anything we had laying around to create some loops."

So what did the two bands think when they heard their tunes reworked by their pals? "Their bruises remix was immediately funny to me," Wimberly says. "If you're a recording geek like me, you notice right when the vocals come in that they are pitched down a bit from the original," he explains. " "I always love snares on the offbeat, it's almost like chopped-and-screwed soca-dub," Donmoyer says of the Chairlift mix. "I love all the delays and space, they really make it a Chairlift song, that's how remixes should be."

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Great Gatsby' Is a Crushing Disappointment
• 
  TV Why You Should Watch 'Happy Endings'
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter