Essáy – “Ocarina (The Field Remix)”

Essáy – “Ocarina (The Field Remix)”

The up-and-coming German producer Essáy puts his tracks on Soundcloud with surreal but descriptive genre tags. It pokes a little fun at our need to label things, but also tries to get across something essential about the music’s intent with haiku-like limitations. He ends up providing us with terms like “emotional sunstep,” which somehow mean a lot, regardless of the fact that they don’t really mean anything. The only constant is the word “emotional” preceding each tag, and for good reason, as his exciting, often innocently sweet tracks are moving, and not just in a physical way. It’s clearest on the “emotional house” track “Ocarina,” where he spreads sunny beats and a sample of the titular instrument to grand lengths. Now it has been given a remix by ambient techno giant the Field, which is essential listening.

Rather than taking you on the same journey provided by the original “Ocarina,” Alex Wilner prefers to lock into one trance-like groove here and ride it into infinity — the Field’s M.O. since he dropped his first singles on Kompakt. As I’ve said before, Wilner’s music has a fractal-like quality, a constant repetition (with only subtle shifts in mood such as on last year’s darker Cupid’s Head); one song can act as a microcosm for his entire career. Taking that personality and applying it to another artist’s music, though, is what makes the Field such a highly respected remixer, and his version of “Ocarina” loops and glistens with a hypnotic sway. Listen to both versions below.

(via XLR8R)

Both versions of the song appear on the Ocarina EP out 7/1 via Cascine/Glyph. Pre-order here.

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