Caroline Polachek - Standing At The Gate: Remix Collection [Limited Grey Swirl Color Vinyl LP]

Caroline Polachek is an artist who delights in hearing her ideas refracted through the sensibilities of others. Her debut solo album, Pang, was stacked full of pop bangers, hitting the sweet spot between catchy melodies and experimental production. With help from PC Music acolyte Danny L Harle, along with artists like Jim-E Stack, Speedy Wunderground mastermind Dan Carey, A. G. Cook, and Daniel Nigro, she made an album that straddled that line, producing beguiling hits like "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings." Now comes the remix package, and you get the sense that it's as much an opportunity for Polachek to hear her own work through fresh ears as it is a gift to her fans.

The remixes bring Polachek's work into realms that the original material hints at but never broaches. With pitched-up vocals and a frenetic donk drop, umru swings "Ocean Of Tears" on a spiked hyperpop flail. On his remix of "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings," Polachek's right-hand man A. G. Cook ups the radio-ready pop quotient significantly, beginning on the catchy pre-chorus and ending triumphantly with a gratuitous key change.

George Clanton's rework of "Hey Big Eyes" goes for a slowed-down '90s trance feel, while the Deftones' Chino Moreno joins a desperate duet with Polachek on Toro Y Moi's version of "Hit Me Where It Hurts." Given that the original material flirts with the more commercial side of experimental pop production, it's exciting to hear these songs pushed to extremes. Polachek even plays around with her own material on the slow, extended recasting of "The Gate."

Standing At The Gate also includes a new single—Polachek's cover of The Corrs' 2000 hit "Breathless." Her reading of the massive radio jam, whose soaring chorus is reminiscent of many of Pang's highlights, effectively closes the book on this era of Polachek's songwriting. The collection becomes a coda to Pang, a continuation and a goodbye all at once, a portrait of an artist intent on remoulding herself in front of her audience.

Tracklist