- If The Knife's first foray into opera (alongside Mt. Sims and Planningtorock) wasn't a universally unqualified success from beginning to end, it certainly provided some moments of avant-gardist pop brilliance and arguably some of their most exquisite songwriting to date. One of those moments was "Seeds" in which a delicate handling of Mike Oldfield-esque bell chimes and tender techno percussion grew into an electric aria of real grandiosity and beauty. It's an obviously sensible choice for single release and reinterpretation, a charge that falls to Portable and Shinedoe.
The great thing about Portable is his inimitability. His tracks stand out at quite a distance, and there aren't many producers who can make the same claim. It's not just the bellowing, bass-clarinet timbre of his voice that blows his cover on the rework of "Seeds," but also his quirky approach to programming. The percussion seems to be surrounded by the acoustics of a round hall and a melee of brash synths that conspire melodically to shed their very brashness forcibly switches The Knife's ethereal for the real.
Shinedoe's remix isn't as multifaceted, but she makes interesting use of what was, on the original, an operatic vocal chant, turning it into a synthesised sequence of dynamic resonance thanks to careful wielding of the attack and sustain knobs. Dance music and opera have never seemed such a good match.
Tracklist A Seeds (Shinedoe remix)
B Seeds (Portable aka Bodycode remix)
Digital: Seeds