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Jarvis Cocker and Marie Davidson remix Baxter Dury for new EP
In a move that feels like a perfectly curated B-side for the discerning music obsessive, the worlds of indie sleaze and sophisticated electronic pop have collided with the announcement that Jarvis Cocker and Marie Davidson, alongside the ever-present sonic alchemist DJ Parrot, have turned their attention to Baxter Dury’s latest opus, ‘Allbarone’. This isn't just a remix EP; it's a cultural handshake across generations and genres, a testament to the enduring, threadbare cool that Dury père et fils have woven into the fabric of British music.Baxter Dury, of course, operates in that rarefied space where louche storytelling meets unexpectedly lush arrangements, a lineage that runs from his father Ian's cockney poetry through the Streets and right up to the dry wit of contemporaries like Jamie T. His ‘Allbarone’ album, a critical darling upon its release, is a masterclass in character studies set against a backdrop of wobbly synths and disarming sincerity.For Cocker, this is a return to the remix fray that harkens back to Pulp’s heyday, where his distinctive, wry baritone and knack for finding the tragicomedy in the mundane made him the perfect narrator for other people’s stories as well as his own. Pairing him with Marie Davidson, the Quebecoise producer known for her razor-sharp, deadpan electronic missives on albums like ‘Working Class Woman’, is a stroke of genius.Davidson’s aesthetic—a blend of coldwave minimalism and pulsating club energy—provides the ideal counterpoint to Dury’s more ramshackle charm, promising to refract his songs through a prism of icy, European cool. And then there’s DJ Parrot, aka Richard Barrett of Sweet Exorcist and Warp Records fame, the Sheffield legend whose influence in bridging the gap between post-punk attitude and early house music is immeasurable; his presence guarantees a deep, rhythmic understanding that will root these experiments in a dancefloor heritage.What we can expect from this collaboration is more than a simple rework. It’s a translation.Cocker will likely tease out the narrative wit in Dury’s lyrics, perhaps adding his own spoken-word embellishments, turning a song like ‘Sincere’ into a even more arch duet of male vulnerability. Davidson might take a track such as ‘Aylesbury Boy’ and strip it back to a hypnotic, driving bassline, overlaying it with atmospheric textures that heighten the song’s inherent melancholy.The broader context here is the beautiful, ongoing rehabilitation of the remix as an art form, moving far beyond a lazy drum loop for club play. This is about reinterpretation, about artists with strong, established voices using another’s work as a canvas to paint their own signature colors.It follows a rich tradition, from The Slits reworking ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ to Saint Etienne’s entire career built on curatorial reverence. For Baxter Dury, this endorsement from such iconic figures acts as a powerful amplifier, cementing his position not just as a cult favorite, but as a songwriter whose work possesses the malleable depth to inspire his peers.The consequences ripple outwards, suggesting a fertile cross-pollination between the UK’s guitar-adjacent storytelling scene and the more conceptual end of continental electronica. In an era of algorithmic playlists, this EP is a handcrafted artifact, a piece of vinyl you can imagine being passed between musicians in a dimly lit bar, a conversation in sound that promises to be as intriguing, witty, and emotionally resonant as the original album that sparked it.
#Jarvis Cocker
#Marie Davidson
#Baxter Dury
#remix
#EP
#Allbarone
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