Smerz
“Easy (Astrid Sonne EDIT)”
Escho (order the album here, if it’s still available…)
The music of Smerz is calm and cool.
Like, insanely cool. I don’t even feel cool enough to be writing about this band.
I don’t know if they’re even trying to be this cool. But god damn –it’s working.
I fell in love with this Norwegian duo earlier this year with the release of their album, “Big City Life.” There aresome great clubby and certified dance-floor bangers on here (I’m looking at you, “Roll The Dice”), but for the most part, the strength of Smerz is this understated style of writing that makes you want to draw in closer and hear exactly what they’re trying to say with their lyrics and production. (Makes sense – some of that album was actually recorded in a library.)
That’s a big sonic change from a world that seems to be focused on everything being bigger and more over the top.
Now they’re taking a victory lap with “Big City Life EDITS,” inviting a mix of Scandinavian and American artists to rework these tracks into something new, highlighting little pieces you might’ve missed and rearranging the work itself.
The one that caught my ear was Astrid Sonne’s edit of “Easy.” Sonne also records for Escho and grew up in Copenhagen, where Smerz spent some time crafting their sound, so the collaboration makes sense.
Sonne’s rework of “Easy” is like peeling apart the original material limb from musical limb and reassembling it like a Frankenstein, where at first, it sounds like these parts have never met each other and are still trying to figure each other out as the track unfolds.
Eventually, it finds its deliciously understated groove as the strike of a violin carries the listener to a loose drum beat. I always value a song with a sense of space and atmosphere to it, like I can picture myself in the room where it was recorded, versus something sterile and mechanical.
There’s plenty to love about the original version, but Sonne’s edit is a standout on “Big City Life EDITS” and improves on the original without doing too much.
