ES7128 seven-inch features Faithless
‘PEACE AND NOISE (SISTER BLISS REMIX)’
This month’s Electronic Sound seven-inch boasts two top-notch remixes of tracks from the forthcoming new Faithless album, ‘Champion Sound’, both of which are not available on vinyl elsewhere.
The A-side is ‘Peace And Noise’, a bleepy and infectious song that’s been looped, stretched and refashioned into a gigantic groove by Sister Bliss, who founded Faithless with fellow producer Rollo Armstrong in 1995. The result is reminiscent of the days when the band’s singles could last anything up to 10 minutes.
“It breaks my heart, because some of the best music is expansive and it needs time to develop,” says Bliss. “‘Insomnia’ was over eight minutes long and that caught people’s attention. It was a different era, I suppose. So this was an opportunity to bring that energy back to the table.”
Carrying on the grand Faithless tradition of working with a diverse cast of collaborators, ‘Peace And Noise’ features a hypnotic spoken word vocal by London poet and storyteller Suli Breaks. He also contributed to the band’s last album, ’All Blessed’, which came out in 2020.
“Blissy came up with this quite rumbustious riff,” says Rollo. “We sent it to Suli and said, ‘This side of the album starts with the words “forever free”, can you elaborate on that?’. What he is talking about with this track is the freedom of being in a club and basically finding your feet in there.”
“You definitely get that sense of liberty, connection and unity when you’re on the dancefloor, the belief that the bassline and the vibrations can save us,” agrees Bliss. “Sometimes, when you’re in the middle of it, you feel like all your problems melt away. And I love Suli’s lyrics. He’s a seer, he’s someone with an incredible spirit, and this is a very fresh and euphoric track. It feels quite modern to me, but with an old skool flavour.”
‘DOLLARS AND DIMES (SISTER BLISS REMIX)’
Flip the record over for a second brilliant Sister Bliss remix of another of the standouts on ‘Champion Sound’. Her reworking of ‘Dollars And Dimes’ is a symphonic and pulsating anthem peppered with sci-fi noises.
The belting vocals on the track come courtesy of American pop diva Bebe Rexha, and the lyrics are a cautionary tale about missing the true value of life when distracted by empty highs and materialist bling. Rexha has previously worked with Eminem, Rihanna, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and more.
“Bebe got in touch with us and we thought, ‘How cool to work with a bona fide pop star, but at the same time to try and make something Faithlessy’,” says Rollo, who penned the lyrics with his own children in mind. “My son is quite radicalised in some ways – he’s at university, he goes on marches and all that, and then he wants to find out where the free party is afterwards. So the lyrics I wrote are slightly returning to the original idea of dance music, which seemed to me to be about humanity.”
“‘Dollars And Dimes’ is pretty much saying that money can’t buy you love,” adds Sister Bliss. “But the lyrics are a little different from where they started out, they’re maybe a bit more political, because Bebe really personalised it. She was very transparent with it and I think this is part of the process of her finding herself again. She has sold her soul too many times, but she doesn’t want to do that anymore.
“The track is also alluding to a new sound and a new crowd. It’s interesting how there are all these little warehouse raves happening now. They reflect a return to sound system culture and you don’t get loads of people just filming themselves. You can see there’s this nostalgia for a time that the kids didn’t even live through.”
