JDH & Dave P
Go Commando
Defend
Whoever thinks playing other people’s music is easy needs to listen to this surly mix of well-crafted remixes with a notepad in hand. As displayed by the NYC DJ duo Dave Painka (Dave P) and Josh Houtkin (JDH), who compiled these tracks from bands they’ve featured in their sets, remixing other people’s songs to create a new set of feelings and moods is not easily done. Though the original versions featured on Go Commando were made to move you on the dance floor, Go Commando adds an element that creates a digital dance floor in your head.
The JDH/Dave P duo doesn’t succeed on every track but when the remixes work well the original rhythms pulsate harder and faster, or slow down creating a whole new experience that fits and grooves. The opening track, Joakim’s “I Wish You Were Gone” gets a spookier, funkier, and deeper house redo in the electronic afterlife as an ominous ying to a sentimental yang expressed in a classic Pink Floyd track. Norwegian quartet 120 Days’ “Come Out, Come Down, Fade Out, Be Gone” gets ravier as the original frosted gem grows into a multi-dimensional trek that climbs up, out and across the clouds of Norway’s icy stratosphere, setting off a crescendo of digital hi hats and electro-sirens at the end of the eight-minute journey. Tweaked only slightly is Gossip’s “Standing in the Way of Control” which isn’t surprising because it’s hard to make that song any better than it already is. Go Commando’s filler in the middle keeps it from being the true balls-to-the-wall remix that the 2007 album title suggests it is.
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