Woolfy vs. Projections - Absynth / The Return Of Starlight

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  • The two tracks remixed here are standouts from Woolfy vs. Projection's full-length Astral Projections of Starlight, a breezy excursion into downtempo electronica that serves as an imaginary soundtrack to some serene sci-fi shoreline. "Absynth" and "Return of Starlight" stick out in part because they're able to escape the gravitational pull of generic form that seems to threaten the album elsewhere. In other words, Astral Projections of Starlight is a good demonstration of the particular super-fine line you must avoid crossing when composing chill-out tunes, a line best summed up by a fictitious version of soul singer James Ingram in the web show Yacht Rock when trying to describe why Jimmy Buffet falls on the other side: "It's mellow, but not smooth...kind of shitty." The album version of "Absynth" sounds like Air covering Steely Dan's "Black Cow": a laid-back white-boy make-out track with a light, stiff funk bounce. It's an alluring tune, and it carries out its seduction by way of two interplays of light and dark: harmonically, in an exchange between shadowy minor chords and bright major chords, and stylistically, as moody synths counterbalance the vocals singing "I love the things you do for me…woman...Is this heaven?" Marcus Worgull's remix polishes it into an intimate club jam: its relaxed but insistent groove works well whether you're on your feet, on your ass or on your back. It's a modest but effective rework, not really concerned with opening up any hidden potentials, content with beefing it up for Saturday night, at the cost of having to do away with some of the gaps and spaces in the original which lent it an air of pleasant anticipation. "Return of Starlight" neatly balances the full-length's two primary occupations: travel and eros. With its deep Balearic twilight vibe and lyrics like "Oh captain…Am I home?…1000 years later...Where did I go?" it's basically an homage to David Crosby's nautical stoner classic "If Only I Could Remember My Name." While the original builds up a steady lounge pulse before leaving the galaxy, Invisible Conga People start right at the deep end, taking this expansive, drifty tune even further out on a spacey, sensual voyage. There's seduction here as on the Worgull track, but it's been transmuted, no longer solely about the kind that unfolds between two people, it also becomes a celestial come-on, emitting a deep-space gravitational pull towards the outer limits of some murky cosmic sea. The Congas' rework is also aided by the addition of a simple piano stab that would sound at home on a straight house number if it wasn't so deeply dunked in cavernous reverb, which makes it instead feel like it was swiped from the Stones' "Sister Morphine." As such it quite adeptly nails the implicit goal of both tunes: To be both dance-y and trippy at the same time, moving on the dance floor but staring at the stars.
  • Tracklist
      A Absynth (Marcus Worgull Remix) B The Return Of Starlight (Invisible Conga People Remix)
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