Last April, INDUSTRIAL CITY IN THE CLOUDS celebrated its 5th anniversary. One of the reasons to have a stop-and-think-for-a-moment reaction to that fact, is that a fifth wedding anniversary is traditionally called "wood"; and since wood is one of the main subjects of the album... well, you get the drift...
JK was contacted by Eric Guez to create an industrial-sounding remix of the album. The remixes, which dropped officially as White Labels in Japan, were constructed from the original analog recordings of the albums, in combination with demo-recordings of the (original) sixteen tracks, pre-recorded research material, alternative recordings of the songs and newly created synth and drum-computer parts. The remixes were made by a number of DJ's, sound-designers and under the constant supervision of Jean and Eric.
"it's murder in the fitting room | BONDAGE MIX" and "waakzaamheid (de~) | SEED MIX" function as original singles in the JK catalog. Of each White Label only ten (10!) physical copies are available, spread all over Japan. It's a bit like hunting for Easter Eggs...
For me, these remixes are INDUSTRIAL CITY IN THE CLOUDS as well. It's just that all the elements of the original songs are exaggerated. It's as if we were trying to get deeper into the droning core of the album. You know? The lowest sound level of the album was this industrial sounding drone, made out of bass, cello and synthesized field-recordings. These remixes are a bit like, as if we tapped into that drone and started working from there. That's why it's weird that they label it as being remixes. It's like the opposite of remixes. These mixes are more stark and naked, while the album-versions of the songs are the dressed-to-perform versions of the same stories. At least, no-one of the mixers, and come to think of it, Eric, who initiated this music-project, tried to make it pretty or peaceable for the ear. And in between the lines, but that's just personal, it is a tribute to discotheques like RoXY, De Waakzaamheid and iT; trying to relive the way they were 25 years ago. But, we were painting from memory, so you might have a different memory of those places...-Jean Koning