Cassette Review: Red On "Ghana Remixed" (VERYDEEPRECORDS)

[€7 // Edition of 50 // https://verydeeprec.bandcamp.com/album/ghana-remixed]

Way back in February of 2015 I wrote a review for the cassette called "Ghana" by Red On.    This cassette on VERYDEEPRECORDS is a remixed version of those songs and so even though Red On gets the "artist" spot here, the only involvement Red On really has from what I can tell is being the source of the original tracks.   Now, of course, I feel like this was all done with Red On's blessing, but it would be fairly easy to take an album from an artist and release a remixed version of it without their ever knowing since just about every instrumental electronic producer of music seems to do it at some point in their life.   ("It was the hot song at the time! I couldn't help myself!")

What's curious to me though is that while there are a total of nine tracks on this cassette- nine remixes if you will then- and there are five tracks on the original "Ghana", the song which finds itself remixed the most is "Ghana 10", while "Ghana 16" is then remixed twice and the other three originals only have been remixed once.    The thing with the numbers is though, which you hopefully remember from the original "Ghana", is that they don't go in order and just because there is a "Ghana 16" doesn't mean the original "Ghana" had sixteen tracks.

The actual order of the original "Ghana" tracks is 10-6-13-16-11 (which feels like lottery numbers) and so I like to take one of the four remixes of "Ghana 10" and one of the two remixes of "Ghana 16" and sort of put the remixes into order to create this sort of a new album based upon the original "Ghana" but being slightly different.    Feeling like this was simply the original five tracks remixed in order would have been one thing, but since you can kind of play around with them and shuffle them digitally it gives you this unique experience which I've never really found in music before but feel like more musicians should explore through the power of remixes.

Besides being a virtual choose-your-own-adventure style cassette, each of the artists who remixes each of these tracks brings a bit of their own style, their own signature to the songs and sort of creates their own version of them so you also get this introduction to a new artist while still being in love with Red On.   It'd be like if you watched a movie when you were young and fell completely in love with it, then they made a remake when you were older which had you falling in love with a new cast and a new director and all that only Hollywood doesn't work that way even though music can.