Altered Zones

We've not heard from Salem since last year's monumental King Night rose above the Internet like a great funeral pyre ash cloud puffed from God's own wheezing lungs, but the divisive Chicago screw disciples are back here with a typically booming take on the debut single by emerging British electro-pop songstress Charli XCX-- binding her wide-eyed vocals to a crimson bed of endlessly thick, gloopy synth drone and bone-shuddering 808 clatter like only they know how. The song's called "Stay Away," and whilst Charli's original seems to yearn for space in post-breakup bitterness, the bleak, expansive beauty of Salem's edit seems to crave a far more universal isolation. --Jack Shankly, Transparent.

Charli XCX's "Stay Away" is out on This Is Music on May 16th