The accompanying release to the
Autumn People album,
Lead Sister: Remixes is just that, a series of remixes by sympathetic artists in the
Bad Apples/Seksound vein of dreamily tuneful music. The core band isn't per se an electronic one aside from some elements on songs like "Mono Moon," so hearing a bit of that aesthetic applied to them more directly here is fun. The more exact comparison point, though, might be mid-'90s
Boo Radleys remixes done by acts like
the High Llamas -- there's the same sense of slightly divergent but ultimately 1960s art pop-derived sensibilities rubbing up against newer expectations of what can be done with a song's original version. Some remixes are more openly electronic in a post-synth/indie pop vein, like Galaktian's sparkling take, which replaces much of the original arrangement to introduce a sweet, beautifully swooning blend of orchestrations that sounds just a hair like a mid-'80s John Hughes soundtrack ballad. Bill Wells' remix is another sharp treat thanks to making the female vocalist the lead and stripping everything down to electric piano for the first half of the song; it's almost as if he had found an obscure 1970s lounge recording that was the original version of the track. Others tend more toward the pleasant side, rearranging without reinventing (and admittedly nothing completely shatters and rebuilds the song from ground zero), but the
Pia Fraus remix unsurprisingly and enjoyably pumps up the shoegaze guitar glaze while nearly burying the vocals. ~ Ned Raggett