Tosca - Tlapa The Odeon Remixes

It’s something of tradition for Tosca to get their albums remixed. Indeed, they once released a record comprised entirely of 13 mixes of one song, 2002’s ‘Different Tastes Of Honey’, variations on ‘Honey’ from 1999’s ‘Suzuki’. It’s a way of keeping things fresh, injecting some uncertainty into proceedings, knocking things out of balance in order to check how they should be re-aligned.

Richard Dorfmeister (he of Kruder & Dorfmeister fame) and Rupert Huber’s most recent album ‘Odeon’, released last year, was darker and more ambient than its predecessors. It tapped in to the Mittleuropean melancholia than runs like a river through their hometown of Vienna. “We’ve always had a darker, ambient side,” says Dorfmeister. “We really wanted to emphasise that aspect of music with ‘Odeon’.”

That’s their take on it. The idea now was to get other people’s. “I like the idea of seeing what comes out of people remixing our music,” says Dorfmeister. “I prefer it when the result is unusual. Dance mixes can be formulaic, y’know, the most important element gets highlighted or there’s a harder beat. It’s difficult if people deliver something that’s a bit formulaic because you have to have an awkward conversation, but 80 percent of what I got was good the first time. Going back to people and saying, It’s not quite right is not my favourite situation. But I never give them directions of what I want, I just let them get on with it.”