This union isn’t as unholy as you might think. Montreal electronic virtuosos Purity Ring got the nod to create the official remix of Lady Gaga‘s “Applause,” which at first glance might seem like a sandpapery combination—Gaga’s particular brand of electro-pop is hyper-stylized, very neat and rigid and sharp. Purity Ring certainly doesn’t lose any points for production, but their sound is usually reveals more of a layered, chaotic beauty in its synths and ghostly vocals.
But this one booms. Purity Ring’s Corin Riddick sees pop music as the science it is, and he had this to say on the remix’s creation:
I listen to a lot of pop music in my spare time, and I just thought the chorus was just huge and had a powerful delivery and melody in it. I wanted to see if I could just craft something around that in a way that it would make sense to me…The first thing I did was delete everything but the vocals. With a remix I don’t think any of the original instrumental should be used, so I just listened to vocals on repeat and took it back down to a blank canvas – just acapella, to imagine what could be around it.
Stream Purity Ring’s remix of Lady Gaga’s “Applause” below:
