Sculpture Projects
Proximity Effect – Remix + Atmospheres, track by track
The new single from Sculpture Projects features a bold remix of Proximity Effect, and two ambient reworks. Here, artist/producer David Gauntlett takes us through Proximity Effect – Remix + Atmospheres, track by track.
“I’m not going to just keep doing different versions of the four tracks on the Restless EP, honestly,” he vows. “Now I’ve done this I can move onto new things. But the two ‘B-side’ tracks, the ambient reworks, were especially satisfying to do – maybe having demonstrated that I can do something noisy and interesting, I felt more able to do something less hectic.”
Proximity Effect (Sculpture Projects Remix)
“This has got a lot of extra twinkly sounds, and shimmery strings, plus – most conspicuously – a lot more drums, handclaps and percussion. In the original version I was trying not to rely much on beats and drums. But then I thought it would be more exciting to do a proper punchy boom-clap kind of remix. I had in mind the amazing mixes of OMD in the mid-1980s by Tom Lord-Alge, such as the 12” mix of La Femme Accident and the 12” mix of If You Leave. It’s not quite like that of course. It unfolds gradually and by the end, if you’re playing it loud, is quite intense.”
Proximity Ambiance
“The two ‘Ambiance’ tracks here are me trying to be minimal, and not exactly succeeding – there’s still quite a lot going on – but this is twinkly and peaceful, and because it takes quite a while for things to unfurl, there’s a kind of gentle suspense. The beats sound like raindrops drumming on the roof. I re-recorded the vocal as a whisper, to be less intrusive. The challenge with ambient or minimal works is always the tension between being sufficiently interesting but not overdoing it.”
October Ambiance
“Being an ambient version of October, from the Restless EP, this is like a B-side of a B-side, but it’s possibly my favourite thing that I’ve done. The long bass note on the cello, which eventually but not at all hurriedly fulfils the desire for it to rise by one note, I really like that. And the twinkly things, the little glockenspiel shape, and the handclaps. And I like how it really isn’t in a genre, or if it is, it’s in a space that doesn’t otherwise exist, somewhere between contemporary classical, and house music.”
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