07 Nov, 2013 Blood Diamonds Mix By John Foxx & The Maths
SIMPLE MINDS – BLOOD DIAMONDS – Remixed by JOHN FOXX AND THE MATHS
Released today – Listen & Download HERE
“Gleeful and glittering and glamorous. Transgression never sounded sweeter!”
Simple Minds’ brand new single ‘Blood Diamonds’ has been remixed by analogue electronic band John Foxx And The Maths, featuring the ex-Ultravox singer and long term collaborator Benge.
The track brings together two pioneering artists at a point in their careers where they’re both enjoying some fresh momentum.
Simple Minds recently shone new light onto their pioneering early albums with their hugely acclaimed ‘5 x 5’ collection and tour and have been reaching a worldwide audience this year with shows in South America, the USA, Canada, South Africa and across the UK and Europe in the wake of their ‘Celebrate: The Greatest Hits’ album.
John Foxx started 2013 with the critically acclaimed John Foxx And The Maths Evidence album, featuring the likes of Matthew Dear, The Soft Moon and Gazelle Twin, and has gone on to work with film-director David Lynch, the much-lauded Ghost Box label, ADULT and Finnish dance producer Jori Hulkkonen in a new spurt of creativity.
Coincidentally coming together at the same time as the Virgin 40th Anniversary celebrations, these former Virgin label-mates along with Benge, are finding new ways of distilling 21st Century beauty out of only a voice and the circuitry of ancient synths. It’s been a long time coming.
Although they’ve taken the song back to Simple Minds’ synthesizer roots, it not only sounds contemporary but expressive and elegant through the combination of Jim Kerr’s striking vocal and the slow pulse of the machines. There’s a sense of motion to the song, a ‘trance-in-mission’ glide through Kerr’s flickering, filmic imagery.
As Foxx says: ”I loved Simple Minds from the first moment I heard them because they were a slightly younger generation who had taken up drum machines and synthesizers. And they were unique. The way Jim Kerr plays with words and titles makes him the best internal movie director I’ve ever come across. With the remix, Benge and I went for deep beep, bleep creep and stun drum with me on backing vox. It was gleeful and glittering and glamorous. Transgression never sounded sweeter!”