Saturday, October 23, 2010

Kim Wilde - Kids in America (808's Extended Retromix)

And once again, another classic New Wave track which sadly never got the extended 12" mix treatment. This is probably Kim Wilde's signature track, and indeed became a New Wave anthem. Even today, this track sends chills up my spine.

I may be mistaken, but apart from an Ultrasound (UltraTraxx?) extended version, there has been no true extended remix done of this track. There was a dance mix made of this in 1994, but I saw it as sacrilege. They took this track and tried to make a techno-dance number out of it, which I think totally destroyed the feel of the song.

I did this mix, using only the album cut of the song, and I had to do a lot of work! First off, I was able to take the opening bassline, copy it, pitch shift parts of it to match the original bassline of the song, and then progressively use that bassline and other bits to gradually isolate the vocals from the song. Once I had the vocals isolated, I again matched these iso vocals against the song to create a sort of instrumental mix. You can still hear faint echoes of the vocals in this instrumental mix (which you hear near the opening of the song) but it just adds to the feel of the song.

In addition, I decided to add extra percussion to the song, and I wanted it to sound as retro as I could, so I used samples from classic drum machines of the period, including a Roland TR-606 (for the kick and cymbals) and the Korg KPR-55 for the snare (also known more popularly as the Depeche Mode "Speak and Spell" snare). These sounds augment the drum sounds already in the song. The result is a bonafide 80's style extended remix worthy of this classic track.

The mix clocks in at 6 minutes 36 seconds.

Listen to this track on legitmix.com

No comments: