Monday, September 10, 2012

Arsenal Plays Melvin


Despite being named after a London football team of exception quality, Arsenal are actually electronic producers from across the channel in Belgium. While not necessarily known too well outside of their native home, their latest single Melvin should go a long way to changing that.

Melvin is a lush, chilled, deep house inflected pop tune that features soulful vocals, euphoric synths, and an absolutely inescapable hook. The single is simply staggering and the vocals of Pigeonhead’s Shawn Smith take the tune over the top. The main original mix is then complimented with a series of remixes that come from Compuphonic, Bok Bok, and Diskjokke. Compuphonic does something to the song that essentially robs it of its seductiveness and instead makes the tune a haunting sparse nearly Tron-like piece. I'm not too sure of that remix, but the Bok Bok is a bit better and makes the tune all downtempo, dark, and awesome. It's still chilled but it's as if a dark cloud moved over the tunes euphoric rises. Perhaps the best remix of the bunch is Diskjokke’s who turns the thing into a disco anthem of epic proportions and keeps all the best elements of the original while slathering it in a glam overwrap that will set the dance floor alight.

Melvin is perfect introduction to Arsenal for everyone outside of Belgium and the remixes here only ram home the point further that these guys are good. That all being said, it's only a matter of time before the world knows who Arsenal is and this is where the recognition begins!

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