Unlike a lot of remix albums where an artist gets a song to work with, the artists on Chicken Switch were given whole Melvins albums to work with. So each track is a remix of a whole album. The Melvins chose experimental electronic artists for Chicken Switch, with such names as Matmos, Lee Ranaldo, Merzbow, Kawabata Makoto and Speedranch getting involved. The result is a pretty extreme makeover. It isn’t an album of mixes that sound nearly identical to the originals. In fact, most of the tracks don’t sound that much like the Melvins. “Queen (Electroclash Remix)” by The Panacea and Lee Ranaldo’s mix are pretty wild chopped up metal. Farmers Manual‘s “disp_tx_skel_mach_murx” and Void Manes‘ “Overgoat” both sound like a reconstituted Melvins struggling to remain conscious, in a good way. “The Silky Apple Butter of Youth” by Sunroof! is, well, as silky as the title suggests. A lush texture of drifting ambient synth that is pretty far removed from the source material. John Duncan‘s “AAHHH…” isn’t a full on charge that the name suggests. A mixture of hypnotic rhythms and guitars hold the listener in stasis before he heads into the territory of murky bass.
If this is your first introduction to the Melvinss (and where exactly have you been hiding?) and then you head towards their latest full length offering Nude With Boots, you are quite likely to say “What the hell?” Chicken Switch is pretty different. It isn’t Further Down the Spiral to Nude With Boots’ Downward Spiral. Chicken Switch is its own project. As with remix albums in general its a pretty mixed bag, ranging from slow droning tracks, mad electroclash, glitch outs, and reconstituted metal. Inevitably, there’ll be some stuff you wont like but plenty you will. There are some great tracks, but which ones are great? I guess that will depend on the listener. It would probably hold no interest for the traditional metal head, but the Melvins have never been that kind of band anyway.
A curious and worthy addition to the Melvins already hefty discography.
-Alaric-
