Not many artists order a track-by-track remix of their début album. But then not many artists are Bloc Party, which is probably for the best – how would we tell them all apart?
The majority of Silent Alarm Remixed proceeds much like Silent Alarm, with some sounds added and taken away and a few extra wolves here and there. The Pioneers [M83 remix] bears no resemblance whatsoever to the original track.
It's an immersive, epic stringscape, layered with a rhythmically repeating, disjointed burst of a Kele Okereke vocal; this punctuated by intermittent fragments of the song, slightly out of sync with the rhythm. Think a passenger of the Titanic running futilely for their life along a collapsing corridor, in slow motion and in black and white.
It seems brief even at 5:47. Perhaps it's because there are so few words.
They even used it on Top Gear a couple of weeks ago in a piece about the new Honda Civic. What more could you possibly want from a song? If you download one track this week, make it Pioneers Remixed. Stay tuned.
