Today's offering is very short but sweet - a polished two track duology, with an original track and its revisited remix. If I'm reading the credits correctly, Romo is the songwriter/producer/DJ-master, and Roxie is the guest-star vocalist.
First, the original: bright, driving (ha) synth and strong pop-vocal styles in a mildly ominous minor key are reminiscent of early Lady Gaga (in a very good way). I can tell Roxie is a powerhouse vocally, and now I'm curious to hear her really let loose and belt, rock or Broadway style - I'll be checking her out if possible.
On the production side, it sounds lush but never too busy, and does some really interesting things with chord progression and slight dissonance - an unexpected rise at 1:04 instead of the customary minor fall got my ear-attention anew. The feeling of optimism permeates throughout, and the car navigation system voice dropping the title, "now turn left," is a cheeky and fun way to both end the song and nod toward its origins.
My only real bit of con-crit here is that the releases feature no written lyrics, which I would have appreciated (and fully understood), but fortunately the vocals themselves are prominent and clear enough that even I could understand them with relative ease. Still, written lyrics do help audio-processing-challenged music lovers like me get the full experience.
Now for the remix: Oh yes, it does pretty much everything a good remix should. I do like the contrast of presenting a song and then playing spot-the-difference with a remix, as long as it's noticeably kicked up. This one is - it adds a great deal of urgency/bigger drum-drops and depth right off the bat, changing up some beats, and inserting interesting elements. Specifically, there's a section at 1:08 of chopped vocals I again would have liked lyrics for, since I honestly can't tell if they're meant to be understandable words, or just neat melodic sounds. That aside, it's a lot of fun that also demonstrates considerable skill on all 3 fronts (production/writing, vocals, and remixing).
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to pick a favorite, and I do really like both, but the remix does add an aggression I appreciate and had a fun groove to. Turn left and drive on!