Of Montreal "Disconnect the Dots (Mixel Pixel Remix)"

This all happened before I started documenting such things in the Internet (on the Internet?) but back in 2004, my favorite record of the entire year was Of Montreal’s Satanic Panic in the Attic. It was a close race, and a weird one. See, Panic just barely edged out The College Dropout and shared the top five with Blonde Redhead’s Misery is a Butterfly, Madvillainy, and Panda Park from 90 Day Men. That’s all I can remember without digging through my old emails, but there’s no doubt about how happy I was when Of Montreal svengali Kevin Barnes put the acoustic guitar down, took scissors to the super-thick but tattered and torn Elephant 6 apron strings and embraced his electro-glam inner child. Before Panic, I would always buy the new Of Montreal records, but I would end up slightly disappointed, feeling like Barnes was perenially on the verge of doing something great—not that I knew what that was or anything. But playing Panic in close proximity to Scissor Sisters that fall proved to me that I was right—that change did work for him—and also provided a one-hundred percent chance of rejuvenating a party that had lapsed into couch conversation. Both records were glam as shit and wonderfully gay, but Panic nailed me to the wall because of Barnes’ songwriting, which was introspective and highly personal as ever, but now had the kaleidoscopic context that nearly one-upped the sentiment. I can’t control why records mean what they mean to me—it’s some sort of combination of personal history, current tastes and the context that the record first “hits” me, in no particular order—but Panic sticks to me like a burr. A cute little paisley burr with glitter all over it.

And “Disconnect the Dots” the most. It’s the first and best song on the record—a delightful wisp of a melody bedecked with delicate synths and wordless harmonies that Argent and Blunstone would have adored—and it set the tone for the rest of the songs, which assumed the form of concept by virtue of following it. It’s a call to action, not really specific or anything, but Barnes clearly needs a companion to assist as he deconstructs the cosmos like pulling posters down from his wall and SEEING FOREVER BEHIND THEM (or something). And remixes are always dicey, but it’s great that Barnes has allowed his new life (the past two records) to be wrangled and wrestled and reformed into distant echoes of what they formerly were. Mixel Pixel’s remix(el) of “Disconnect the Dots” (mp3) starts by imagining the song as a “White Rabbit”-style bass-laden geek-out: swaying, bubble-glasses-wearing hippies dance in front of a huge circular psychedelic goo swirl (the old kind that looked like it was magnified from between two microscope slides). The vocals are proportional to the original, but the music is about 85% speed (and the bass is more prominent), giving the song a 4am post-druggy haze (the “it’s so beautiful” part especially sounds like it’s being said while leaning on the shoulder of a friend for physical support) that would actually sound fine at the end of a record.

Get Satanic Twins from Polyvinyl here.