80/100
Released six months ago, Illenium’s “Awake” was definitely a highlight of last year, (with thousands of people considering it a milestone of melodic bass music). The album delivered melodic dubstep, future bass and emotional trap creations accompanied by some magical vocal performances.
“Needed You” featuring The Voice 2011 runner-up Dia Frampton, is (personally) one of the most memorable of them, being the opening track of the selection and thus being encharged of setting the right tone. We can easily admit that it does its job incredibly well.
Back to 2018: what would happen if two of the most promising melodic big room producers attempted at remixing this vocal melodic dubstep masterpiece?
We are talking about Mexican duo ANG, Blasterjaxx’s Maxximize Records rising stars.
Their remix kicks off with a mighty intro with some leaks of what is going to be the synthy melody of the song. We are ready for the eery vocals of Dia, who starts her chant on caring a person not worthy of her love for years. (Mind you, the album was about an ending relationship).
Anyway, there is no time for sadness here, as the slow piano in the back leaves space to some energetic tweaky synths and twisted chops of Dia’s vocal. These fast little synths soon get replaced by some massive W&W-style big room synths, a powerful signature ANG element.
One last stretch of accelerating buildup before what might sound like an underwhelming drop… However, ANG actually did a great job in not overdoing with the power of the drop and they kept it on the melodic progressive big room sound. It didn’t need to be a festival behemoth, rather an attempt at keeping intact the emotion of the original.
It’s a very small element but that little tweak with the words “needed you” before the second dose of vocals made me kind of smile. It’s my favourite detail of the remix!
The second breakdown re-introduces the vocals of Dia, leading towards another big room house formulaic build up and drop. I must admit that, for me, ANG exaggerated a little bit with the vocal chops structure and the pure might of that build up suffered from it… However, the following drop makes up for that in nice fashion. One of the best ever produced by ANG.
The world of electronic music definitely needs more of these house remixes of emotional vocal bass songs.
All in all, ANG did a great job in keeping it simple and not overdoing with the big room elements. This remix, even though a comparison with the original may be a difficult job, presented the right approach. ANG delivered a version that amazes and impresses us reviewers.
Props to the Mexican duo for what might be their best production of the current year! Hope to see it in a hypothetical remix pack of “Awake”!
What do you think?
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