Released on:
Papua New Guinea 2001
Accelerator / Papua New Guinea Mix Anthology
Runtime: 3:42
Friend, longtime FSOL fan and huge contributor to the pool of knowledge that helped enable this blog’s existence, Nebojsha Mitrikeski, described this track in his indispensable Pande-reviews thread on the FSOLBoard as “disrespectful to the original”. And that’s why I love it. So many ‘Papua New Guinea‘ remixes merely take a few elements of the original – always including the vocal – and whack them over an entirely new backing track. Psych-indie-folk group Simian, then friends of Brian and Gaz, instead took the original’s bass and piano lines and recreated them in their own style, all creaking noises, skronky woodwind, oddly lolloping drums, queasy humming and acoustic guitar arpeggios. It’s my all-time favourite ‘Papua New Guinea’ remix because it takes the track so, so far away from the original and makes something completely new out of it. And it’s a lot of daft fun. Gaz, at the time, described the mix as “a cosmic psychedelic version of the track which is more aligned to where we are now with our musical focus.” It’s a shame they never worked with Simian again after this track, as it’s a match made in heaven for me. I listened to this one over and over again in 2001, and it always brings back very happy memories.
Credits
Written by Brian Dougans / Garry Cobain.
Produced by The Future Sound of London @ Earthbeat Studios.
Additional production & remix by Simian, mixed at Trial & Error Studios.
Fractional Difference 