Danny Elfman
Bigger. Messier.
ANTI-/EPITAPH
The album title really says all you need to know about this one. This remixed odds and ends collection is longer, denser, more disorderly, and less refined than Danny Elfman’s Big Mess solo effort from last year. This new version is overstuffed and overflowing with 21 new variations and guest vocal takes from an intimidating swathe of experimental artists. Trent Reznor, Iggy Pop, HEALTH, Zach Hill of Death Grips, Xiu Xiu, Squarepusher, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Ghostemane, and several others dot the landscape as the styles whiplash between rock, dance, and experimental electronica.
Elfman is obviously an iconic film and TV composer, and has consistently proven this over the course of several decades, but Bigger. Messier is minimal at best and unhinged at worst. The overall flow of this release completely obliterates the political and artistic rock strainings of the original release in favor of wild swings for genre experts draping their style over an already-overstuffed project. A lot of Big Mess’ original appeal was that it was a socially charged pandemic recording session where the lyrical and melodic ideas congealed into an album approaching a complete piece, so the haphazard cutting, resizing, and reshaping of the tracks here saps a lot of the original’s power.
The expert production and audio engineering for the original songs also take substantial hits. Playing these on earbuds or a great stereo system really doesn’t matter when the end product is a metastasized mass of disconnected musical thoughts. This double remix album has a few gems from the marquee contributors (Reznor, Iggy, HEALTH, Zach Hill), but overall it’s a gargantuan spread to pick over versus the original meal inviting you to sit down and inhale in one sitting.
