New York, NY. (Top40 Charts/ K7) - Dance music is a form of pop music, and most pop music, historically, has been made at least in part to make people dance. But somewhere, somehow, the relationship fell apart. Ewan Pearson, though he might not put it in as many words, brings the two back together, by locating the secret pop song that lurks in the heart of every great club track. No easy trick. In over a decade behind the boards, that fusion has become second nature for the English-born, Berlin-residing producer and DJ. That's doubtlessly due in part to his tenure behind the decks at some of the greatest nightclubs in the world. It must somehow also be related to his decision, around the turn of the decade, to stop producing his own solo work (which he released as Maas and World of Apples, as well as under his own name; he continues to produce alongside his frequent collaborator Al
Usher in the duo Partial Arts) and concentrate on the music of others, both as a studio producer and, most famously, a remixer.
Piece Work essentially picks up where the 2001 remixes comp Small Change left off, charting the last six years of Ewan's beat-burnishing.Though Ewan's name may have remained mostly amidst the small print, he's been all the busier for it. His remixes appear on at least 58 different releases by a wildly diverse group of artists - including Seelenluft, the Chemical Brothers featuring the Flaming Lips, Playgroup, Freeform Five, Franz Ferdinand, the Rapture, Pet Shop Boys, Goldfrapp and Depeche Mode, all of whom turn up on Piece Work.
Over the course of his career, Ewan has developed one of the most distinctive voices of any remixer working today - not by imposing his own aesthetic, but by teasing out that hidden seam of pop pleasure and dancefloor impulse. Perhaps that's what makes all of his mixes unique unto themselves. But there's no recipe for an Ewan Pearson rework. It may be bleepy or roughed up with guitars, sweetly chiming or brutally blunt. The tempo may be fast or slow; the rhythm skippily housey or gargantuan and rocktronic. (Ewan even made one of the greatest contributions to the canon of so-called "schaffel" with his rollicking update of Goldfrapp's "Train," one of two Goldfrapp mixes on Piece Work that grab you by the collar and send you spinning like a disco ball.) You get the sense that he's flying blind every time, feeling out the contours of the original and subtly reshaping with his fingertips as he goes.
On Ewan's "Bari Girl Remix" of Silver City's "Shiver," it takes almost three and a half minutes - the length of your average pop song - to get to the first hint of the vocal, but from the very start you know that this spinning wheel of bliss-baited hooks is pure pop, stretched taut like an empty balloon. Two minutes of extended climax make it feel like you've been singing the melody your entire life, before everything dissipates into a fog of strobing arpeggios grand enough to animate the biggest dancefloor in the world. Or consider Ewan's "Rave Hell Dub" of the Chemical Brothers featuring the Flaming Lips' "The Golden Path." Surely one of Ewan's greatest creations, it transforms the jittery, motorik folk of the original into a 10-ton truck rolling roughshod over a road paved with heartbreak; propelled by insistent bleeps and bells, the song takes flight with the choral finale, soaring all the way to transcendence. "The Golden Path" and an additional mix of "Train" are also both included on the Piece Work EP 12-inch single, featuring three tracks never before officially released on vinyl. Given that they're among Ewan's most iconic reworks, it's fitting that they're accompanied by Cortney Tidwell's "Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up (Ewan's Objects in Space Remix)." Being one of his most recent productions, this rework of the Nashville singer is a melancholic bit of future balladry whose tough-but-tender swirling suggests that Ewan is on the cusp of yet another breakthrough, one perhaps akin to breakout success he attained five years ago with his Freeform Five, Seelenluft and Chemical Brothers remixes. Put together, these 21 tracks make sense in a way they never could on their own, playing ideas off each other and creating a jumbled and jubilant narrative.
In the end, the story Piece Work tells is a simple tale of a love affair with recorded sound - coupled, perhaps, with the moral that two heads are better than one. (Especially when one of those heads belongs to Ewan.) You can hear Ewan having fun with every drumbeat, every chord, every squelching bassline, and that palpable sense of joy is nothing short of infectious.
Piece Work Tracklisting:
Disc: 1
1. Manila - Seelenluft
2. The Golden Path - The Chemical Brothers
3. Prides Paranoia - Futureshock
4. Shiver - Silver City
5. Song For the Fields - Fields
6. Make It Happen - Playgroup
7. Perspex Sex - Freeform Five
8. Visions - Slam
9. Train - Goldfrapp
10. One, Two Three - No Gravity - Closer Musik
11. Outsiders - Franz Ferdinand
Disc: 2
1. Catch a Moment In Time - Mocky
2. I Need Your Love - The Rapture
3. Psychological - Pet Shop Boys
4. Beat the Bush - Alter Ego
5. 49 Percent - Royksopp
6. Ride a White Horse - Goldfrapp
7. Evil - Ladytron
8. Raining Again - Moby
9. Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up - Cortney Tidwell
10. Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode
