The Reflex is a London-based French DJ and producer named Nicolas Laugier. He specializes in a particular kind of remix, the re-edit, in which you rework a song using only sounds found within the song itself. Some re-edits keep the original song more or less intact, and just give it a punchier mix, a more DJ-friendly intro and ending, and maybe a new breakdown section. Other re-edits (the ones I find more interesting) radically transform their source material by moving pieces around in unexpected ways. Read this Greg Wilson interview to learn more about Laugier’s process.
I love Laugier’s tracks on several levels. First, he has a fine ear for mixing, and his edits always have spectacular clarity and depth, often sounding better than the originals. There’s intellectual pleasure, too: it’s fun to hear a fresh take on these deeply familiar recordings, and the music educator in me adores the idea of using music itself as a medium for music criticism. Laugier implicitly critiques the music he edits, saying, “This song is cool, but wouldn’t it be cooler if the drums were more prominent, and if you could hear this keyboard part in isolation, and if there was a longer groove in the intro?” I always prefer music analysis that I can dance to.
Here are some of my favorite Reflex tracks.
This has a long and exquisite intro built from material found on the multitracks that didn’t make the final cut:
This preserves the structure of the original, but it loops and extends some sections, brings the beat up frontm and adds a nice voice-and-drums section:
Introduces all the layers in a pleasingly gradual way:
Everything you love about the original, just more of it:
Finds the latent banger within:
Strips away most of the song, leaving only the hot-as-fire breakdown:
I adore the original but appreciate this fresh take on it too:
A fairly radical deconstruction:
Changes the harmonic structure appealingly:
A big improvement on the original to my ears:
A more standard DJ approach but still grooves hard:
Beyond enjoying these tracks as music, I also think they do the world a valuable service as low-key civil disobedience. We should have the right to remake recorded music to suit our own emotional needs, and we do not currently enjoy that right. By normalizing unauthorized remixing, Laugier is pushing us closer to a more sensible copyright regime.