The twirling amusement and merriment of Rubblebucket’s “Carousel Ride” off their album Survival Sounds gets a different kind of spin and style on the premiere of the remix from Perfect Pussy’s Shaun Sutkus. The carefree carnival attraction of the original is transformed into one part science fair experiment, and equal parts abstract analogue anomaly constructed like a home made radio. “Carousel Ride” twirls in a counter-clockwise detour, combined with an unfinished collaborative song between Rubblebucket and Shaun.
The first thing that occurs on Shaun’s remix of “Carousel Ride” is the switch in fidelity frequency. The entire song becomes a lo-fi cassette recording that sounds like the joyful blare of an amusement park soundtrack submerged into a subversive vintage decor heard through a fairground like environment. The remix ride continues on its axis, propelled by centrifugal forces that operate on the very physics that cloak contemporary audio into the classic threads that obscure chronological objectivity. Shaun’s remix shuttles “Carousel” along a rollercoaster track that leads into a fun house of an exclusive Rubblebucket colaboration that has remained unheard until now.
Kalmia Traver, Rubblebucket’s lead vocalist described for us the following anecdotes, and the new life found in “Carousel Ride” introduced by Shaun’s remix, and more:
We first met Shaun when he was the assistant engineer at the Syracuse studio where we recorded our self-titled record. In the intervening years traveling with him as our foh-tm/band mom he was always the combination of most stylish and most down for whatever, literally, whatEVER, whenever. His music reflects that raw beautiful spontaneity like a prism. We laughed so hard when we heard this remix, because it is so Shaun. And then the bit at the end— a song about the Internet being broken and then fixed (my wifi is named Jade Leaf) that we started recording one afternoon in my living room, but never finished. How it has new life. Nice.
Shaun Shutkus from Perfect Pussy described to us the making of the Rubblebucket remix in the following words:
The first time I heard the intro to this song I wanted to turn it into a ducked out dance tune. When Rubblebucket plays “Carousel Ride” live it sucks the life out of you. I wanted to expound on that with my remix. I want the listener to not only hear each compression and rarefaction as it exists, but also use it as a tool for meditation and catharsis.
UPDATE
Shaun also helped direct this video for the remix of, “Carousel Ride”, made as a further collaboration with Rubblebucket (utilizing unseen footage from the Alexis Boling video for the original song), along with Kirk from Skaters.
The video had many contributors. Alex sent me footage he shot while on tour in the west. Some of which I “directed” via text message. Alexi sent me leftover footage from the proper carousel ride video shoot. I also shot some of the video while on tour with Skaters traveling across the US. Kirk, Skaters guitar player shot the sunrise time lapse while I was driving through the night in Utah just outside of Salt Lake City. I also used some photographs from the first Perfect Pussy tour in Europe. All of the shots layered upon each other create a utopian dream like state where all of my friends hold hands and dance circles around Mont Saint-Michel together.
Rubblebucket’s Survival Sounds album is available now via iTunes.
Perfect Pussy’s Say Yes To Love album is available now from Captured Tracks.
