100 street transistors
(1997)
columbia 487709.2
original
press release
For the Strawpeople 1997 is the year of Remix.
The new album ‘100 STREET TRANSISTORS’ sees some
of the country’s top producers and purveyors of
aural electronic art getting to have their way
with two albums’ worth of Strawpeople material.
For an act who have always been at the forefront
of sample-based vibrations, the Remix album
seemed more than just the logical progression.
Early in ‘97 leading Strawperson Paul Casserly
set about asking various local Producers to
reinterpret a number of tracks from the album
‘BROADCAST’ and 1997 NZ Album of the Year
‘VICARIOUS'. “The Budgets were very tight,
but everyone was into it, I was actually
surprised at how into it some of them were”,
says Casserly who, not surprisingly, couldn’t
keep his hands off a few tracks of his own.
"As the album began to take shape, I realised
that there were still a few tracks I thought
should be there, and I happened to have a bit of
time on my hands, so ...“ The resulting
Casserly remixes includes “Wings Of Desire”,
the song that Gus Van Zant chose for his movie
‘To Die For’.
Elsewhere, he teamed up with long-time
Strawpeople collaborator Joost Langeveld, aka
Trigger, for a reworking of the 1995 hit “Sweet
Disorder”. Trigger also contributes his own
take on the band’s most recent single “Spoiler”.
Langeveld is also part of world renowned
dubheads Unitone Hi Fi, whose version of “Porcelain”
provides a solidly spooky feel to the album.
The 1996 NZ top twenty and radio hit and “Single
Of The Year” finalist, “Taller Than God”,
is the only track that wasn’t remixed in New
Zealand. As part of Sony Germany’s release
strategy the song was given the treatment by top
Berlin remixer. With former Headless Chicken
Fiona McDonald providing most of the album’s
vocals (Leza Corban belts out two of the
tracks), it seems only fitting that fellow
ex-Chicken and sample epicurean Michael Lawry
should be invited to revisit “Trick With a
Knife”, and when another ex-Chicken, Grant
Fell, bumped into Casserly late one night and
told him he was representing English DJ David
Harrow and “he’d be into do a mix”, Casserly
jumped at the chance. Harrow’s version of “Crying”
was the result, although it was a strange
journey. “I gave him the wrong tape” confesses
Casserly, “I gave him the vocals from 'SpoiIer’
which Trigger had already remixed, so in the end
Fiona re-sang some of the lyrics from “Crying”
and they seemed to fit like a glove. The great
thing about this sort of project is that there
are no rules!”
That assertion is proven by rising Auckland drum
‘n ‘bass artist Tim Prebble, aka Short Fuse, who
took the instrumental “Vicarious” and
turned it inside out. Former Urban Disturber
Zane Lowe’s “Breaks Co-op” does similar damage
on “Inject Me”. “Being able to hand
out tapes with just the vocals and getting back
a finished product was such a buzz” enthuses
Casserly. “And being able to give them to
people whose work I very much admire was just
wonderful.”
One of the first people approached was Simon
Holloway, fresh from his much hailed production
of the Sulata album ‘Kia Koe’. His version of “Dreamchild”
(aka “Juice”) kicks off the album and features
the talents of sax star Nathan Haines. It also
features an out-take from the movie ‘The Wicker
Man’ - the original inspiration for the name
Strawpeople. “I laughed when I heard that”
says Casserly, “and I knew it had to start the
album”.
“Sun Comes Up” provides the only truly
new piece of music, (although the instrumental “Mile
Over Melbourne” was only released as a
B-side) and features the sublime vocal chords of
Leza Corban who co-wrote the track along with
Casserly and another long-time Strawpeople
collaborator, Greg Johnson.
As for a term for describing the album, Casserly
shies away from using terms such as techno and
drum ‘n’ bass. “Actually, I’d call it a
Neverending Smorgasbord of Sound, but it’s only
69 minutes long, so how about Remixers Go Ape at
the Salad Bar of Beats?”.
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