ATOM was a man, I think
Anyone else miss people making tons of unauthorized remixes and posting them online? Wait, I think I left a few words out, like before and were. Those words belong around people.
I guess there have been bootleg remixes forever, even before the term remix was coined. I've been fascinated with remixes since I was a kid, trying to convince my mother to buy me the 12" instead of the 7" after a good piano lesson. Sometimes the remixes sucked, but more often than not they provided insight into what else we weren't allowed to see or, at the very least, extended a good groove. And when I found out about independent producers who made their own remixes, I really wanted to know what else was out there. For that, like many things, the internet was the blessing and curse, in that we got to learn and hear these versions, though we also had to suffer through a deluge of them. It was novel, at least initially, being easy to shine light on the best contributions, though that's not as easy as it used to be when the horizon is clouded by a fog of half-assed creations, following well-trodden designs rather than exploring creative impulses beyond adding a pulsing club beat to something you could already dance to for the result of making it more house-y. I'm calling you out, Hoxton Whores, as you give the word whore a bad reputation.
Despite my kvetching, I have heard more than enough wonderful explorations of someone else's work by an outside party, and continue to find new ones. I suppose it's part of why I love hip-hop so much, with producers like Prince Paul, Madlib, J Dilla and so many others taking other people's works and making something new out of them. I also can't blame people who heard Dilla's Donuts and were inspired to do something similar. I heard about Flying Lotus because of Dilla, and I learned about Dilla because of Madlib, and Madlib clearly studied the works of Prince Paul and the Bomb Squad among others. We're always going to have those who stand out moreso than others, though I wish the room wasn't so overloaded with everyone that thinks they're going to be the next Dilla, Daft Punk, Kanye, etc. And at this point, we definitely don't need another Kanye. Ugh.
Anyway, I wanted to shine a little light on someone I don't know much about, though he definitely left an impression and may still be around. That would be ATOM, not to be confused with all the other similarly named artists, but probably easily confused due to his (?) lack of popularity. He produced very electronically altered remixes of all styles of music, though his final result was generally something warped, glitchy and a bit faster than when it started. He also worked under the name Precious Roy, a tribute to Liam Lynch and Matt Crocco's Sifl & Olly. As for how I found out about him though, I have no clue. Maybe Palms Out Sounds remix Sundays? All I know for certain was finding his site, filled with his productions, and being very entertained.
ATOM subcribed/s to that particular field of dance music that may annoy some more than inspire some booty shaking. The glitchiness of his grooves reminds me a bit of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin, both artists with devoted fan bases but very rarely approaching so-called commercialism. That style of music used to be referred to as IDM, short for Intelligent Dance Music back in the nineties, to which some asked what the hell was so intelligent about it? It certainly wasn't for everyone, and therein still lay some of its many charms, but some can't be bothered with anything beyond a pulsing 4/4 beat and/or a familiar melody (Once again, you know who you are.). ATOM worked at bridging those stalwarts though, making mince-meat of popular songs by artists as diverse as Bill Withers to David Bowie. I suppose that makes him an equal opportunity malcontent?
As I mentioned earlier, ATOM's website is still online, though many of the links are broken and some drag slowly. I don't know who he/she is or if they are still making music, but I wanted to share a few gems I've gotten from there over the years.
ATOM leaves the track at it's proper speed but adds double the beats, so Bill sounds as funky and soulful as ever while making it hard not to move faster than you normally would. Very nice.
ATOM messes with the melody, adding a copy of the familiar riff being played in a different key atop the original. If I were a musicologist proper I'm sure I'd know the term for that, or I could reach out to someone that would know (lookin' at you, Spence!), but I'll just let you enjoy the track. There is also plenty of tastefully weird distortion added to the vocals and the guitar solo. For a song I hate, I really enjoy this version.
And now for some abstraction. The melody and most of the lyrics are dropped for a funky, slightly glitchy jam. Dropping the vocals from someone else's track can be an easy crutch for the uninspired, but when you know what you're doing you can make something really interesting from source material while still leaving it as dissimilar as an apple to an orange. ATOM does that here, and quite nicely I'd like to add.
I think I'm going to have to post some really old bootlegs soon. Like, REALLY OLD.
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