Like
//DISCO, the remix album that followed
HEALTH's 2008 self-titled debut,
::DISCO2 finds a fresh crop of indie electronic and dance producers reworking the noisy L.A. band’s second full-length,
Get Color. The trendsetting contributors all do their jobs and give the material new shape, by warming up the cold skronk of
HEALTH's excellently gnarled 2009 album and transforming it into something more along the lines of “chillwave.” If this smooth-as-butter presentation was your introduction to
HEALTH, it would be hard to believe that they could ever sound abrasive or aggressive. “USA Boys,” an unreleased original produced by prolific shoegaze producer
Alan Moulder, sets the stage nicely as a slick, prismatic wash of ‘80s synth textures. The rest of the remix artists (
Crystal Castles,
Javelin,
Tobacco,
Pictureplane, and
CFCF, to name a few) follow suit, and construct similarly wonderful downtempo ambient beats based around
Jacob Duzsik's ghostly a cappella vocals. [An expanded edition of
Disco2 includes 12 MP3s of remixes by other artists, including
Clipd Beaks,
Rainbow Arabia, and
Nite Jewel.]