Listen: Peter Morén - "Hit Where It Hurts (Sportsman remix)" [Premiere]

16 December 2014, 11:00 | Written by Laurence Day

(Tracks)

(Peter Bjorn and John) (Peter Morén)

Peter Morén - the Peter in Peter Bjorn and John - has made a lovely four minutes of indie-pop bliss in the form of "Hit Where It Hurts", recalling '60s haze and summer frolics. Compatriot Sportsman has now offered a remix - his first - of that tune, warping it into something new entirely.

The track features originally on Morén's Swedish language solo LP I spåren av tåren, but has been translated and reworked for Broken Swenglish Vol. 2 (released recently via INGRID), the second instalment in his English language EP series. Providing another twist, Sportsman reduces the track to its base elements.

Using maudlin keys as rhythmic buoys and the slowly-rolling tide of strings, Sportsman makes the cut a chillier affair - not without heart, however. Gone are flutters of off-kilter guitar and the majority of Morén's words, and in their place Sportsman injects pizzicato shudders, abyssal ambiance and the kind of low-slung electronica that pervaded Royksopp's final album. The somnambulant ode now slinks and slithers rather than springing around, but it retains a beating core that'll keep the fire inside alive during frostbitten nights.

Morén spoke about the original track and Sportsman's take, saying:

""Hit where it hurts" is one of my favorite melodies I've ever done. Just something about how it flows... melodically and harmonically it just sits very nice and natural to me. [I] was really curious what Sportsman would come up with for this, and I love the results! Without keeping much from the original but the string-section and the tagline he somehow have managed to keep the feel of the song intact but expanded it to new territorries. [I] love the laidback-feel - lounge-house if you will - with the jazzy autumnal piano and the way it mixes analog and digital tradition in a seamless way. I hear raindrops or sparks from a fire on a cold day and somehow that is in line with the original to me."

Commenting on the remix, Sportsman gushed praise over the pillars of indie PB&J:

”Peter is a pop genius. I mean ”Young Folks”… it's ridiculous. So when he asked me to do this I was honoured. His first solo album in Swedish is called I spåren av tåren and it's my favourite. It reminded me of my boyhood in the woods of Sweden. So I love the first ever Sportsman remix to be of one of the songs from that album. But how do you handle already perfect pop? I think remixes are only fun if you approach them with a playful attitude and try to take them someplace new. And we had a lot of fun making it, sampling African folk tales, talking about The Streets and recording rain.”

Listen to the remix (and the sixties tinged original) below.