2 out of 5

Label: Skin Graft Records

Produced by: ?

Bang for one’s buck is the rating criteria, here, and given that this was one track from the forthcoming debut album – and not a wholly great one; rather average – and a fairly bogstandard house remix by MSTRKRFT… well, for me, the revisitability was pretty much nonexistent once the album came out.

Dead in Different Places doesn’t dramatically differ from the dance punk direction Eric Paul had taken his bands post Arab on Radar, and though this is by no means a bad thing – it’s why some of us are here – the potential of the setup, with _ supplanting / adding to guitars and bass with found sound, feels like a missed opportunity on this track, essentially extras of which you’d not really be aware without reading the press kit. Similarly, it’s great hearing Paul push his paranoid lyrical themes outward, a bit more social and less insular; however, we only get a couple lines of limited imagery before they mostly repeat.

MSTRKRFT’s remix of this track underlines the even more beat-centric vibe (compared to Chinese Stars, AoR) to an extreme – they turn it into a house track. Flattening the vocals is an interesting wiggle, but besides the novelty of hearing house music on Skin Graft Records, unless this is your scene, the remix doesn’t hold much value.