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Blonde 'Foolish' ft. Ryan Ashley (KAASI Remix)

15 May 2014 | 5:55 pm | Gavin Butler

KAASI's remix of 'Foolish' takes the original and dropkicks it, shattering it completely and playing around with the shards.

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BLONDE's original 'Foolish' was a funk-driven piece of soft-core R&B: that light, infectious, almost cheesy brand of radio pop that's like a feather in PHARRELL's Mountie hat; like a pin on JT's tux.

Remixes can either create, building on their musical foundation, or they can destroy, breaking it down completely and reworking from the rubble.

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KAASI's remix of 'Foolish' takes the original and dropkicks it, shattering it completely and playing around with the shards. There are still hints of RYAN ASHLEY's smooth, high-throated vocals: small, jagged pieces cutting in through the percussion slices—but he now sounds more like SAMPHA than USHER; the beats more SBTRKT than TIMBALAND. The flow is broken into scattered pieces, the pop hook thrown to the wind, and only briefly do hints of BLONDE's initial vision bubble to the surface of what is now a nebulous, atmospheric piece of club house music.

Remixes like this are exciting. It's all too easy to take a radio pop hit, resplendent with singalong hooks and dance-happy vibes, and kit it out for the nightclub with a touch of bass and synth. That's what every second DJ in every second club has been peddling for years. KAASI doesn't regurgitate here: he reinvents, to the point where the new resembles the old about as much as Macaulay Culkin.

The original was a bit of light, innocent, cheap thrill fun; this is a little stranger and a little darker. So much so that the remix almost deserves to be classified as a standalone track in its own right: a KAASI original, merely sampling that BLONDE song. Both are good, but in very different ways.

Words by Gavin Butler

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