Tracklist

#1 Cool (Deerhunter Version)
#2 Yo-Yo (The Calvinist Saved Mix)
#3 Yo-Yo (The Calvinist Unsaved Mix)

Single MP3s for this release are $0.99.

Pylon / Cover + Remix

DFA

formats available

7"
$6.00
DFA2279
829732227918
Street Date:
June 28th, 2011
Ship Date:
June 28th, 2011
MP3 DOWNLOAD
$2.97
829732227918
Street Date:
June 28th, 2011

Of the bands that emerged from the burgeoning Athens, Georgia, music scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s, Pylon were among the most creative, inventive and forward-looking. Their contemporaries, including those who later eclipsed them in fame, continue to cite them as an early influence. So do their more modern musical inheritors—a group that includes Bradford Cox, who was born in Pylon’s hometown and grew up in nearby Atlanta. Pylon were among the Deerhunter frontman’s first musical loves and informed his early tastes, and that fact seems apparent upon hearing Deerhunter’s reverential cover of “Cool,” Pylon’s debut 1980 single. Which is not to imply that distance was a factor in Cox’s appreciation of the band. Calvinist, a.k.a. Sasha Frere Jones, who grew up a great distance from Athens in New York City, offers a redux of Pylon’s “Yo-Yo” that proves their influence extends far beyond their birthplace. Like its progenitor, Deerhunter’s “Cool” is led in by an anticipatory bassline and a sudden flash of guitars, but there are new sounds to be discovered along the way. A distant ringing noise that chimes faintly in at the song’s start, and Cox’s stacked, multi-tracked vocals, which replace Vanessa Briscoe’s original urgency with a feeling that brings to mind the song’s title. There’s a newly extended instrumental interlude: an almost grooving section that keeps the guitars going as pleasant noises swell and circle underneath before overtaking the sound. And just as quickly, we’re back to where we began, with the verse nudging toward the song’s edge. The Calvinist remix of “Yo-Yo” is decidedly less frenetic than the Pylon original. Here, beats shuffle all along the background, just behind Sleigh Bells singer Alexis Krauss’s nice-with-more-than-a-hint-of-naughty vocals. What begins airily hardly stays that way for long: there is a rolling bassline; big, crashing percussive noises; and a gurgling, funk-infused synth. A shape-shifter of a track, the remix moves sinuously along, morphing throughout.