Although it's not a split single, "Smiling Off" is split down themiddle: the first half being the 4/4 dance record and the second beingthefree-form noise-off.The DFA unsurprisingly turn "Smiling Off" into a pumpin' 9 1/2 minutemix, quantizing Black Dice's rhytmic echoes and layering them on top arelentless drum kit that wouldn't sound unfamiliar after listening toan LCD or Juan MacLean 12". It's maintains the somewhat unpredictable theme of the BlackDice original, however, with a myriad of whirring effects from the original plusbird sounds adding even more color. The Vladislav Delay mix adds a deepsynth bass line and like nearly any German remix, sounds much morerigid and mechanical. Vocalizations echoed and looped add a bit of anelement to keep it in the category of "man this is too weird" to playat a Euro trash dance club, however, for any noise fan this mix wouldprobably gently fade into the background. At the nine-minute mark, itprovides an excellent compliment to the DFA's mix. Tusk Drag Force's'ZZ Pot remix' of "Smiling Off" is probably the most free-form take onthe disc. It begins with an aural exploitation of some of the elementsfrom the original, taking the high road and choosing not to add astandard beat on top, then it makes a drastic shift and comes outsounding like "Swamp Rat" from Nurse With Wound! (Somebody's at themixing knobs having fun with dials.) Another shift finds the beatschanging but the twittering remains constant. Over the course of closeto 15 minutes, the song goes through a number of other shifts andmovements, finally incorporating the last movement of the original intothis version. What Tusk Drag Force have accomplished is essentiallymaking an album-side length version of the track.
As a bonus the music video is included as "enhanced content," andit's what would be expected from looking at the cover to the latestBlack Dice releases: a low-budget collage, not "pretty" but colorfuland bright. However, a little warning to the manufacturers and their"disclaimer" that they're not responsible for damaging peoples'computers by means of "enhanced" CD content: you can be (see Title 18 Part 1 Chapter 47 Section 1030: Fraud and related activity in connection with computers).
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