Yes, in addition to the revolutionary step of playing audio in reverse, you can radically alter music by playing it at half speed.
And so it is that Belgian gabber tunes many would fine unlistenable suddenly sound fresh, grimy, contemporary, and irresistible.
Who knows what other life experiences could be transformed by simply altering the speed? (Maybe we need to be half speed.)
Not embeddable, so listen here:
This Is Belgium: Conceptuele Post-Hipster Neo-Gabber By Radio Soulwax [Light Sound Dimension]
The “remixers” explain:
Even though these Belgian records sound very “now”, they are actually 20 years old and were meant to be played at a much, much faster speed. At the time this was the devil’s music for us, but we have learned to listen through the claps and distorted kicks and discovered that if you slow these really dark and heavy techno records down all the way to about 115 bpm, it suddenly makes them sound less frantic, ballsier and a lot sexier.
And, in the most unlikely Belgian Tourism Council slogan ever (but, seriously guys, this one’s free):
“Belgium at its best when pitched down.”
Best of all: the dancers are played back in slow-motion, also recreating authentic moves of the time. Watch closely, then reproduce them
I was just in the studio and a track grew out of playing back a synth lick at half speed, so … yes, I’ll now do this with everything. See you in three years when I release 16 GB of sample instruments with NI.
Belgium, man. Belgium.