Altered Zones

While d'Eon's effort from last year, Palinopsia, was overshadowed by stronger Hippos In Tanks' releases, namely Games' That We Can Play and Laurel Halo's King Felix, his most recent, Darkbloom, is definitely a step in the right direction. Yesterday, blue-eyed soul contemporary How To Dress Well dropped his rework of d'Eon's latest single, "Transparency," and put his own silkysexycool spin on it. In HTDW's light mod-- which entails some resequencing and slowing down of d'Eon's production work-- he plays to the strengths of the new age musing and isolates different parts of the original, resulting in a track that's more minimal and digestible. However, even with the novelty of having HTDW's signature croon outside of its usual context, the rework still feels like it came straight out of the How To Dress Well textbook.

Overall though, HTDW does a great job of singling out what works and what doesn't in the song. The real lifesaver here is the exclusion of the original's main flaw, a hilariously annoying outro which features grating electromagnetic interference-- aka that sound computer speakers make when a cell phone is too close-- a sonic motif that's ruthlessly hammered throughout another d'Eon song called "Telepathy." Thank God for remixes. --Ric Leichtung, Altered Zones

MP3: d'Eon: "Transparency (How To Dress Well Rework)"

Pick up your copy of the Grimes / d'Eon split, Darkbloom, from Hippos In Tanks and Arbutus Records, stream the 12" below: