The Virgin Magnetic Material remix of Make It Wit Chu by Queens Of The Stone Age popped up on a random shuffle and instantly jumped the queue for prospective Dubhed posts this week. I haven't heard this version in a little while but a few seconds into the pulsing beat I was hooked and the moment Josh Homme's vocals kick in, you're in for the ride.
Pinching from his Soundcloud biography, "Virgin Magnetic Material is a remix project by Shai Vardi, a musician and artist based in Tel Aviv. Virgin
Magnetic Material is a definition from the electronic world, describing
core or shield material that has never been magnetized."
Shai's M.O. is to transform rock and pop songs into slow burning, downtempo earworms, retaining pretty much the entire vocals but teasing and stretching out new aural frameworks for the songs. Apart from a Virgin Magnetic Material mixtape in late 2020, most of the remixes date from the 2010s with more recent entries being reposts of previous work.
I've managed to acquire about 20 or so in the last decade, probably less than half of Shai's entire output, and it's an eclectic mix, covering the likes of Queen, David Bowie and T. Rex via oddities from Bobby McFerrin, Flight Of The Conchords through to The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division, Pixies and inevitably that New Order classic that every self-respecting remix artist/DJ has had a go at at some point.
Make It Wit Chu remains one of my favourites though and, back in 2012, persuaded me to check out the original version, which in turn was released as a single in 2007.
This led to the discovery that this in fact was a cover version, Josh Homme covering himself as it were. I Wanna Make It Wit Chu first saw the light of day on the ninth of his Desert Sessions project, titled I See You Hearin Me. It was released as a single album, The Desert Sessions 9 & 10 in 2003, and featured a certain Polly Jean Harvey on backing vocals.
When Josh and co. played I Wanna Make It Wit Chu live on Jools Holland's show in 2003, Polly was right there by his side, tambourine and maracas in each hand and adding an effortless brilliance to the performance.
That is a very cool remix, thank you for drawing attention to it. QOTSA are a band I really should pay more attention to. I appreciate the history lesson on this track as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mooz, glad you liked it. I've heard a handful of QOTSA and that's pretty much it, so I should really do the same. Likewise, The Desert Sessions albums.
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