The concept behind the
Stars
album
Do You Trust Your Friends?
is a simple one: how trustworthy are your friends? If you gave them the chance to repaint your apartment, would they choose a standard shade of grey or a nauseating neon green?
turned over their album
Set Yourself on Fire
to their
rock
star buddies and studio-dwelling, knob-twiddler pals to see how they would remix their tracks. In this case, the risk pays off. Songs that were straightforward
indie pop
jingles are meticulously reworked into more atypical, wonderfully exciting compositions.
Metric
,
Apostle of Hustle
, and
Junior Boys
blow the original versions away with newfangled spins on the original takes.
"One More Night"
is re-created into a computerized
flamenco
number with splatters of
Pinback
and
Wilco
.
"Sleep Tonight"
is transformed into a keyboard heavy video game anthem reminiscent of
the Knife
's fabulous
"Heartbeats."
Of course, when you have 13 remixers working separately on a project that involved six musicians, the wide variety of personalities result in a drastic range of styles. This makes for a scattered listen that feels more like a mixtape than an actual album, but it's a fun one nonetheless. The liner notes include comments from all of the artists involved in the project to give insight on what inspired their manipulations -- whether it be hopes of making the
sound
gangsta
, like
Queen
, or like they were riding in a spaghetti western. ~ Jason Lymangrover