Welcome back the return of Back to the Future The Ride, as Brian Miller takes on the task of remixing the clipping. cut, “Killer”. When we last saw Miller's (also of Deathbomb Arc and Foot Village) side project adventures in the space-time continuum; the year was 2011 and we were listening to Gay Wish on Bum Tapes / Deathbomb Arc wondering if this truly was the end of BTTFTR. Returning in 2013, he takes on LA's clipping. comprised of Captain Ahab's Jonathan Snipes, Rale's William Hutson, and Daveed Diggs; who we heard from recently with their debut of “Bout That“, and rad remix of Foot Village's “This Song Is a Drug Deal“.
Miller's BTTFTR remix takes a close listen to Clipping's minimalist original of “Killer“, foregoing the singular bass synth sample in favor of hollowed out drone replacements taken from the tombs of time. The much written about noise elements of the LA trio are entertained in rumbling spurts like static aerial antennae adjustments. The center chorus whisper that questions the nature of “Killer” gets a MIDI vocal sample of what sounds like the song of digital monks. The Back to the Future the Ride treatment brings out the track's inner aura and chi by selecting a mantra recitation key octave that maintains a mental focus on the track's lyrical intensity through sheet thin sustains of sound.
The cathedral ethereal sets the tone for the remix. The verses are assigned their own piece of chapel emulated atmosphere, creating ambient senses of moral conscious within the trio's constant assertive reminders of, “whose a killer, got all these killers out to kill you, 'cause that's a killer, you ain't a killer . . . you ain't a ganster I'm a ganster.” Keeping the track's almost acapella nature in the frame, the added keys work to stir particles of noise to create an air to exist around the hyper-real rhymes. The rising heat in the final verse turns up the gas as the action gets serious, the flow tempo heightened, and the production's DeLorean vehicle hits 88 MPH.
Back to the Future the Ride's Brian Miller wrote this on the remix, with hints and notes about the future.
“I've been working with clipping. as their publicist since the get go, so I've not only heard their tracks a lot, but I've thought about their inner workings a ton. A couple months ago we did a show together here in LA and I was just kinda rambling on, like I tend to do, and threw out the idea of recreating one of their beats only using my super new age-y Back To The Future The Ride set up. Jonathan said he'd be into hearing that, so I did this almost as an inside joke. If you a/b the original and this version, it's mostly about funny ways to represent all the same things going. Almost a cover song, although trust me, no one wants to hear my attempt at rapping like Daveed. Is this a good remix? I honestly don't know. It's such a true experiment, done with all concept in mind rather than expressing my taste. That said, I do think the final movement of it works really well and hints at an interesting direction to go with making some shit in the future. That *might* be me dropping a hint.”
Stay tuned for further collaborations and projects from Brian Miller and Back To The Future The Ride.
