January 24, 2018 - Whitelabel
Stockholm’s best boy Baba Stiltz has been a big part of our audio consciousness since Monki dropped his Unknown to the Unknown single ‘Cherry’ on her BBC Radio 1xtra show way back in 2015. Since then, Stiltz’s nonchalant attitude and spotty releases have kept us and many like us eager for more of his effortless-feeling, porous-sounding, noncommittal beats. ‘I Know,’ an edit of a 2017 Avicii track we have listened to maybe one whole time, was put up with little warning or fanfare.
The track is straightforward, focusing around a section of Rita Ora vocals cut from the original. But with Stiltz, it’s more about the feeling than the words. Stiltz is getting good at working with pop music, not necessarily in pop music. He picks out the emotions we generally see spoon-fed through top 40 hits on the radio, distills them, and uses them in his own measurements and combinations, crafting a perfect Cosmopolitan cocktail. It tastes amazing—where’s the alcohol? You could have like 10 of these. >:)
The production on the track is very crisp, something attributed to a lot of Stiltz’s work: the percussion is popcorn-dry and bouncy, a lot of the mix stays in the mid-high range, and synth/melodic elements are used as additional percussion. It’s a formula that works well. Though we don’t typically compare remixes/edits with their original counterparts in initial critiques, we overtly do not care about the original track here. Stiltz throws in an old Avicii interview clip at the end talking about how he (Avicii) hasn’t changed his style for the mainstream blah-blah, then cuts it off in the middle of the thought.
We read somewhere online recently that Stiltz is working on/finished an EP due to be released on XL Records, and we are very excited. He is great, and we listen to everything he puts out every time, all the time. Baba Stiltz, forever. 🍍