Róisín Murphy’s forthcoming album, Hit Parade, a long-distance collaboration with German producer DJ Koze, took shape in unconventional ways. The Irish singer has described tracking vocals to the German producer’s beats and sending them back, only to have him turn around and work her singing into a new song in a different key, over a different beat, in a totally different mood. A throwaway line might become the chorus; a snippet from one of her voice messages could turn into the intro. (“Before you know it, we could actually split one song into four other songs,” Murphy said.) So it seems strangely fitting that Murphy should take the unconventional step of releasing Moodymann’s remix of album opener “What Not to Do” before the original version has even been released.
Suffice to say that Moodymann’s mix is in a different key, over a different beat, and in a totally different mood. Where Koze’s production is lumbering and slightly sinister, Moodymann swaps in lithe electric bass and a jazzy, syncopated groove, in which ride cymbals and cowbell tap out son clave patterns around splashes of Rhodes keys. Murphy’s vocals bob in and out of time and tune, and Moodymann himself offers occasional interjections, cooing and wooing and ad-libbing, his voice low and gravelly. Though the original came into being through painstaking iteration, this version sounds spontaneous, like a handful of musicians jamming in a room together. Koze and Murphy’s songwriting process took the form of a game of telephone; Moodymann filters the fragments of their conversation into something effortless and new.
