Thursday 11 October 2012

alizée - a contre-courant (azzido da bass remix)

when the force of nature that was alizée hit the musicscene in 2000 with "moi...lolita", i was totally oblivious much like most of sweden as the song wasn't a hit here. for some reason i kept seeing this song everywhere on the intarwebs and initially i didn't care. eventually i heard the song, which was written & composed by french popstar mylène farmer and her longtime collaborator laurent boutonnat.

i still like that song since it's rather catchy but it really rode the nabokov....err britney spears (i.e. the "...one more time" video) aspect to the fullest. she performed with an innocent persona but sang this song about sex as her initial single. even when the rest of her songs and yes, i know this as i do own her first and second album, has nothing with this blatant trick of shock value. the better thing was to have never released that song from the first place as second single "l'alizé" was musically and lyrically much better.

eventually i bought the first album but it was two years after it's release and this was when i heard about second album "mes courant électriques" being in the works. i prefer the second album over the first as it has better songs in general and the first single "j'en ai marre!" was in the class of "l'alizé". it showed farmer and boutonnat doing cookie cutter pop executed really well.

the reason i eventually caught onto alizée was part of the remixes as i heard dj tonka's remix of "l'alizé" and liked it a lot, as well as booka shade & illicits remixes of "gourmandises". which is when the steve helstrip & illicit remixes of "j'en ai marre!" was released i was quite a fan of them, especially the first mentioned. a clean epic trance version that go overboard in it's epic.

second single "j'ai pas vingt ans" had incredibly substandard remixes, which was a shame as the original was a great song. that was saved up with third single "a contre-courant" which had remixes by steve helstrip who did spot-on mellow epic trance piece in style of his own classic "affinity" and azzido da bass. i remember being excited over the helstrip remix initially but found myself playing azzido da bass remixes much more.

azzido da bass was then known for "doom's night" but this was at the time he did more breakbeat related material starting with single "speed". his version strips the track down the core and focuses on the guitars from the original. it also has a tight breakbeat with a murky bassline doing the job at the low end and a slapped bass for the groove.

the track has that perfect blend of rock & roll and rather funky breakbeats that is only pulled off in the breaks scene. it's this strength that carries this track and does a great job at translating the song for the dancefloor.

listen here (youtube)

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