- Whatever you think of Eric Prydz these days, it's hard to deny his appeal. The guy knows how to write a killer melody, and his sets are full of them. "Opus," which landed back in July, is one of his more ridiculous tunes, ten minutes of decadence that builds for half the track before the beat drops. There's something momentous about it—appropriate for a song called "Opus"—and that's the quality Four Tet seizes for his equally grandiose remix.
Kieran Hebden seems like an odd choice to rework Prydz's biggest release of 2015, though the opportunity came after he simply tweeted that he wanted to do it. His version changes the focus from a build-up to a breakdown. The track starts off mid-sentence, skipping along on the kind of low-slung house beat typical of recent Four Tet. Hebden then takes the beat out and lets "Opus" do its original arpeggiated backflips for five solid minutes. It rises and rises until it becomes something you might hear piping through a cathedral, and then slides back into the comfy beat. The trance-y chords he ties in are almost quaint in this context.
It would be a massive understatement to say Hebden's version of "Opus" could make its mark on a dance floor—that kind of lengthy build can turn a club into a pressure cooker, or just confuse the hell out of everyone. But the credit goes back to Prydz. Hebden has barely touched the blueprint, having only moved some things around and replaced the drum track with something a little gentler. The result feels more like a tribute than a remix, highlighting what makes Prydz's original so good while making it appeal to a whole different set of fans.
Tracklist01. Opus (Four Tet Remix)