She's an influential young face about town is ANNIE, or Anne Lilia Berge Strand, to supply you with the name on her birth certificate when it was inked in Norway 25 years ago.
In more recent times, Annie's music has been championed by the likes of LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, Mylo and The Scissor Sisters, who even made a point of coming onstage to one of her songs during their recent bout of touring. Meanwhile, Annie's reputation has since been cemented due to recent album "Anniemal" (clever wordplay, eh?) being acclaimed across the board.
Thus, on paper the idea of farming out the tracks from said album to the cream of hot new production/ remix talent, would seem a bonzer idea. In fact, when you realise that the likes of Joakim and The Rapture are cooling their heels in the wings to take on more of her tracks, then it's difficult to stop the pulse from racing.
Sadly, like trying to listen to Sonic Youth's early records all the way through, the bald reality wanes when compared with the exciting theory. In fact, the RITON VOCAL MIX of "Happy Without You" (Annie in conjunction with new UK electronic pioneer RITON) is simply so-so. It's glitchy, throbby and insistent dancefloor-minded action with breathy, disoriented vocals and while it's OK, it suffers from being able to bridge the gap from dark, sweaty club to sunny living room in any meaningful way.
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Arguably slightly better is the SEBASTIEN REMIX (Annie with - you guessed it - underground Parisian maestro Sebastien) which takes the source material further out, gets gloopy and amorphous/ analogous and strips it back to a bare minimum, but its' advances are halted by the predictable 'RITON INSTRUMENTAL' which is exactly what you'd imagine and very much a case of no alarms and absolutely no surprises.
A shame, then, for Annie and her electro-minded cohorts are clearly talented people, yet on no occasion does "Happy Without You" elevate itself above the sum of its' parts or threaten to do anything to rise above being filed under 'a mite disappointing.' Oh well, them's the breaks in the real world, I guess.
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