Gone Are All the Days Remix

It’s a hard to imagine releasing a 12” vinyl maxi singles in an MP3-obsessed world, but that’s what K Records have boldly done for Mirah’s remix of "Gone Are All the Days." While angel-voiced Mirah could hardly be compared to club-hit-making ladies such as Lady Gaga or Madonna, this remix tries to come close.

The main track, a disco remix of the song “Gone Are All the Days” from Mirah’s fourth record (a)spera, reworks the otherwise jazzy song into a floor burner. On the original Mirah’s breathy vocals and the piano and jazz bass supporting her make the song sound like it would be at home on a Feist record. Not this one.

According to several music blogs, when the song was performed live it began to take on a disco feeling and so Mirah and her band recorded it in Calvin Johnson’s Dub Narcotic studios as a full-on disco track. It begins with a bouncy beat that at first feels overly typical and almost amateurish, but as the track evolves, so does the beat and the feeling. The song, a dark meditation on times past, mistakes made and feelings changed and lost, becomes a joyous dance floor romp. As the beats pulse and Mirah’s vocals soar above them, the listener can easily picture a club full of sweaty, scantily clad dancers with their hands in the air.

While the indie rock crowd has been obsessed with Mirah since she broke onto the scene with her debut record You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like This, the Gone Are All the Days Remix might be her chance to cross over, if only surreptitiously, by a DJ in the know slipping the record onto the turntables for an otherwise unaware crowd. As if inviting further remixing, and providing an example of how to do so, the record also includes a remix by Hooliganship and an all-vocal version of the song. While the additional remixes are interesting in themselves, they tend to get repetitive if one was to listen to the single all the way through. That and it’s 12” vinyl format indicates it would appeal to hardcore Mirah fans, or DJs looking to expand their repertoire.

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