Admiring From a Distance

I am kind of standing in awe of the Crystal Castles Remix of Atlantis to Interzone at the moment. I've finally broke down and listened to this and CSS after repeated recommendation for a long time by someone who, music-wise, I trust implicitly. (Still undecided on Cansei Ser Sexy, frankly. "Wine, then bed, then more, then again" remains a deeply perfect lyric, though).

But here's the weirdness of it. I don't really like it. It loses the propulsiveness of the original song that I love, which is also shared by the only Crystal Castles track I've really liked (Through the Hosiery). It's not terribly energetic and it doesn't make me want to dance or sing or any of the usual things that'll make something get stuck in my headspace. It is, though, a fucking brilliant example of the difference between someone making a remix thats worht the time and somebody just changing the temp or the backing track. You could listen to the original and the remix and never even realize they were the same song. And that is fucking brilliant and wonderful. Hearing this, even though I don't really love it, has increased my estimation of Crystal Castles massively. (Granted, before this, they were "Those people who ripped off a shitload of other people off of chiptunes sites and STILL only had one good song.)

(On a sidenote, chiptunes. What is the state of the fucking union, as it were? Who's making loud, fast, agressive stuff using the sound? [Bubblyfish's "It's More Fun To Compute" comes to mind, but even that just barely qualifies as something a DJ could spin in a club set.] Lately all the chiptune I'm hearing is slow, ambient, glitch music and the sort. I refuse to accept that it's early promise of rejuvenating electronic music a little bit. Where's my Gameboy powered rave?)