Music Makers

announcing I Enjoy Remixes, vol. 2: Sugardeer x Vien Kohl

We continue on our journey to the center of the remix, with another rendition of I Enjoy Remixes!! That's the ongoing I Enjoy Music music project in which two musical artists remix each others' songs. 🎵🎵 🔀 🎵🎵. WOW!

Last time we had Sun Kin x Styles Munson. Now we are back with Sugardeer x Vien Kohl!! Sugardeer is experimental pop singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Danny Kit, based in Cleveland OH, who last appeared in I Enjoy Music for a delightful Three Music Thingz. Vien Kohl is John Bukovac, who makes lo-fi alt-folk music in Rochester, NY. Danny remixed the Vien Kohl song "Coughing Fit," off his 2024 album Everything Came Spilling Out Like So Much Water From The Dam. John remixed the Sugardeer song "Wishes," off their 2023 album Good Names for Strays.

left: Sugardeer (photo credit Kaitlin Purdham) ; right: Vien Kohl

The original Sugardeer "Wishes" is wistful and lush, embroidered with organic elements like clarinet and piano. It sounds like an heirloom found halfway buried in the ground in the forest...a mysterious handcrafted item, like a piece of old jewelry or a figurine of unknown origin...radiating history and care beneath a bit of smudged dirt and tangled moss...

...The Vien Kohl remix takes that item, gently electrifies it and levitates it. Now it's floating in the air, not in a threatening way, but definitely an anticipatory one. All the bugs in the forest have gone silent, and time is standing still. Is anyone seeing this? Is anyone around to see this?

The original Vien Kohl "Coughing Fit" is a ride home from a group leisure activity in a car with questionable suspension. Everyone's heads bump and bop simultaneously as the tires meet each dip in the road. Chins meet chests, then jolt back up. Everyone is lost in their own thoughts, too tired to speak. But no one wants to be the first one to actually fall asleep. Group liminal consciousness, troublesome introspection slicing in at inopportune moments...

...The Sugardeer remix films this scene on a Super 8 and projects it on the back exterior wall of a shopping center slated for demolition in the coming months. The projection is a little wonky, the picture fractures then resolves, the borders are blurred. Two figures on an aimless stroll happen upon the screening and hold hands as they watch...