New Yorker Diamond Field has been creating some great work lately, and one cut that stands out is his remix of Nina Yasmineh’s “Dark Heart.”
Yasmineh released the sparse original in December, unleashing her fiercely gorgeous vocals atop a hushed backbeat worthy of the song’s title.
But Diamond Field’s version, released recently on Luca Discs, swaps out the darkness for sunny, synthy Go-Gos-infused instrumentation that removes the song from subdued and modern indie-electronic territory and firmly places it in a spot worthy of a montage in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
The synthesizer hook shoots up and down with a shiny, kinetic tenacity like teenagers running around the mall on a Friday night in suburban Somewhere in Reagan’s America.
The guitars mimic the synthesizers until they come unhinged, breaking away from the keys and rocketing off to some neon-infused place in the sky. The drums hop around, tossing and turning with every excited gesture the mix musters up. The kids, they got the beat.
Yasmineh’s sultry vocals still retain their dark quality, but with Diamond Field’s treatment the darkness seems more of a feature and less of a symptom. Where once Yasmineh’s heart was dark, perhaps a bit obsessive and damaged, it’s now just under the typical regime of a complex and frustrating teenage crush.
Diamond Field’s other recent offerings — his work on The Next Peak retrosynth tribute to Twin Peaks and his just-released remix of Dream Shore’s “Thoughts of Choice” — are great and you should listen to them and buy them, but “Dark Heart” really seals the deal for me on the merits of his brilliant artistry.
(Of course, Yasmineh is worthy of your attention, too. She doesn’t traffic in synthwave as a matter of course, but she’s a great artist.)
A note: The track is mastered by Dave Hedin (AKA Phantom Ride), a genius of the genre whose recent album is a Vehlinggo favorite.
