Birdsong: North Kerry Remixes

Ghostking is Dead's Birdsong was an ode to a lost summer, imagining light breaking through and the sweet embrace of summer heat; bright, breezy and optimistic. Now, as winter closes in, Hausu teams up with affiliates of Teletext Records to recontextualise the track in a thick Samhain fog; trying to remember itself in the thick undertow on the playful yet immense North Kerry Remixes.

JJ Lee, bassist in the Ghostking is Dead live set and a man behind the mask in North Kerry pop surrealists Messyng reinterprets the track in his plunderphonic beat-driven take, drawing from everything between boom-bap hip-hop beats, dial-up sounds, Windows 98 and Attenborough to ground the darkened and warped vocals, while pushing, pulling and distorting elements from the original into the mist.

On the flip, Teletext signee and fellow NKY agent of chaos An Eldritch Abomination - last seen beside Ghostking is Dead on the high-tension remix compilation God Alone² - transforms the track into an industrial goliath with vital percussive energy as breaks, pulsing kicks and acid synth stabs swallow up the track and spit it out as a banger ready for any floor you’d unleash it on.

Birdsong shares much the same sonic DNA as Ghostking is Dead's early 2020 EP Fever Dreaming, mixing notes from indie rock and hip-hop to create something warm, textured and melodic, where an unplaceable sample collides with shimmering guitar, complex hip-hop drums, carefully-composed synths and cosy bass. Yet the track is first and foremost a summer banger, sonically evoking deep, hazey heat, saturated blue skies, windows down and radio on.