By Kavit Sumud | March 14th, 2013
The first time I heard Major Lazer’s “Get Free“ last spring, I was bombastically beleaguered by life. Leaving Seattle on a midnight Greyhound that felt like more like a retreat than a new journey, I put my headphones only to hear Amber Coffman (of Dirty Projectors fame) breathe life into this bag of bones. The way Coffman’s vocals were mired in her misery like a marinade sopped my heart in healing elixirs.
Blood Diamonds’ remix is the first one I’ve encountered (and I’ve listened to every unofficial and official one out there) that isn’t skittish about meeting that passionate rawness head on. It’s such a massive musical sin to me when a remix tries to extricate the emotional core of a song — either by misunderstanding of the track’s intent, or an inability to engage those emotions.
But Blood Diamonds has found a way to channel into the multifaceted emotive structure of the song, accentuating each side of it in glorious fashion. The breakdown at 3:44 coupled with a contemplative xylophone at the end, in particular, is one of those perfect examples of really bringing it home.
Check out more at his SoundCloud, and catch a free download of Major Lazer’s newest EP (featuring this track) as well.