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Cupid's Head (Vatican Shadow Mix)

The Field

2014

Cupid's Head (Vatican Shadow Mix)

Release Date:  2014

By Pitchfork

Reviewed October 30, 2013

For all Axel Willner's pre-release bluster, his fourth full-length as The Field, Cupid's Head, wasn't much darker than anything else in his catalogue—it was another superb techno record, though a bit more headstrong than his earlier material. Dominick Fernow (sometimes known as Prurient, but who's been lately making music under the solo guise Vatican Shadow), though, is no stranger to unyielding blackness, but on this remix of Cupid's Head's title track, he dials down the causticity and brings out the song's more hypnagogic qualities.

His remix is a reduction. The galloping beat is pared down, the maximalist intensity no longer fills the room, the undulating bassline (a strong undercurrent in the original) has become a slowly descending white mist. Glistening guitar notes are stretched across the gradual build like vapour trails, bearing more than a faint resemblance to any number of crystalline, 800% slowed Youtube edits. It adds up to a different kind of euphoria, closer in spirit to Looping State Of Mind's midnight ebbs than From Here We Go Sublime's waves of bliss.

8:00 PM · Oct 30, 2013