Photograph by Richard Kelly
When I interviewed Joao, Kalaf and Conductor of Buraka Som Sistema in 2008, the boys explained to me what the now upcoming single - due out in the UK on the 20th of July - 'IC 19' is actually about...
JOAO: There’s a song on the album called IC 19; it’s actually a road. We did that song cause a lot of people, well, do you know about tuning here? Like when people race…[illegal car racing]
KALAF: It’s kinda like pimp my ride –
JOAO: No, pimp my ride is kinda like ‘make my car look beautiful’. Tuning is like, make my car go 300km per hour and make a lot of noise. And that road, during the day time, is the busiest road in the whole country...So we named the song that, cause if I was driving my car while listening to that song, it would make me want to step on the gas.
[CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE INTERVIEW]
And you know what, the track is actually pretty fast and the furious; reminiscent of revving up an engine to a roaring frenzy of adrenaline pumping percussion and undulating electronica - even the pauses in the song are like a sports car shifting gears. The track has been remixed by James Talk, A1 Bassline, Mikix the Cat and Deathface (half of the brains behind the now extinct Guns'n'Bombs).
The two best remixes of the package (cop them below) are James Talk's and A1 Bassline's. James Talk's edit has more of a [Tokyo] drift feel with a kind of tropical flair, maracas decorating the beat.
[Removed on request]
A1 Bassline add in what I like to call 'wowow' (check the track, you'll get what I mean) and develop 'IC 19' into more of a journey with some awesome peaks and dance-outs.
[Removed on request]
Deathface keep it pretty cut and dried, whilst giving it more of a zippy toy car cruising feel rather than a raging machine, building the track into a zippy little number. Vrrrroooooom.
And for extra measure, here's the L-Vis 1990 remix that didn't make it onto the single as well, with it's deep hyper rubber bass.
