Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

(As the song is a remix, so is the video...)

The original, album version of this was already a very stunning piece of electronic music; tightening little blips embroidered a laser display around Kylie's usual sensual vocals, big synths rushing in on the chorus to accellerate the begging "love me, love me, love me" lyric.

When Kylie does this song, it's always quite minimalist in a funny way. The lyrics are almost irrelevant (what "close to touch like Michaelangelo" means is anyone's guess, even if it is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference) and the purpose is more in the sheer soundscape.

If someone like, say, Beyonce, had the song then it would turn into a brassier affair, vocals dominating but the beauty of Kylie's voice is that it can blend almost as an instrument. She's so gentle in her delivery that it doesn't compete with the sea of electronics, fitting nicely into the tide as, well, you're sort of meant to with dance music.

The Freemasons' mix of this song is, in its unedited form, over nine minutes long. It is, as one of the more exquisite pieces of electronic music to come out this year. Don't look at me like that, I love Autechre and Portishead as much as the next person but it doesn't exclude Kylie from the ranks of brilliance.

The single edit is, obviously, rather more condensed but possibly even better for that, unless you really like staring at the ceiling thinking about electronica (which, I'll be honest, I do) and probably a bit more of a realistically danceable length for most people. The Freemasons aren't especially known for being subtle with their remixes, indeed, they usually just chuck some big hairy synth noises over an otherwise delicate song, throw on a rave beat and scream "ENJOY THIS NOW!" at you. And, to be fair, that might be another one of those things from my first paragraph that aint broke.

They manage to actually slot quite nicely into this song, though; although there's a substantial difference between the original and this (namely, some big hairy synths and a rave beat) the original is strong enough to stand its ground without drowning under the Freemasons' treatment. Whilst this might well be something to do with them also having produced the album version, so probably knowing what they'd want to do when remixing their own song or having more respect for the original structure, since they made it themselves or just access to better master copies or whatever, it's still an extraordinarily towering piece of pop.

I've waxed lyrical about how seductively friendly Kylie is, vocally, before and there's nothing so utterly extraordinary about this song, musically, that it really needs a total breakdown to be reviewed and perhaps that means its generic, rather than genius but if Kylie can sell this where Roisin Murphy and (to some extent) Cyndi Lauper are failing, then it's far from a bad thing.

Download: Out now
CD Released: July 28th

(Hazel Robinson)