The Belgian musician, video artist and graphic designer Walter Verdin has seen numerous reissues of his early music since 2018. Labels such as Stroom, Cortizona and his own imprint Pas De Disx have made his idiosyncratically dancing synth and new wave pop accessible to a new audience. Now he has asked contemporary artists to rework his manically epic synth-wave agitation piece »Minimalize«. None of the remixes reaches 9:51 minutes. But each gives the track a character far removed from the original.
Many Belgian artists appear in the line-up. Céline Gillain from Brussels first breaks the source material apart wildly, before ending, carried by her spoken words, in a poppy trip-hop tune. Sagat, also from Brussels, edits capriciously and turns everything into a minimal dub track in which the dub never quite ignites. The conceptual art, performance and music project The Hafler Trio, active since 1980, leaves nothing recognisable of the original behind and spreads out large-scale ambient sound art. Amsterdam’s DJ Marcelle arrives with a billowing bass remix, while the hit comes from the US duo Peaking Lights, with a trance edit carried by »I Feel Love« vibes and sounding heavily cosmic. Twelve interpretations: rarely minimal in style, always maximal in individuality.
