The original release of Elysia Crampton’s “Axacan” (from 2015’s beautiful American Drift record) was a deep, long, wayward journey — dreamy pads matched to merengue beats, synth horns, night time jungle sounds, and Lil Jon samples among many ingredients. Typical of Crampton’s work, its nine minutes were fully unpredictable, traveling through a wide range of emotions and ideas.
In her recent edit, now retitled “Ax Amores,” Crampton narrows her scope and leans on the track’s more ethereal qualities — she brings out the melancholy notes within her chords, giving her chime tones more prominence, and moves the material into a foggier, spookier place. Also, in a true stroke of genius, she adds the horn riff from “Amores Como el Nuestro” (maybe more recognizable to North American ears from “Hips Don’t Lie”), which gives a kind of sad grandeur to the murk surrounding it. The effect is disorienting and unusually moving — fitting in the context Crampton provides for the track’s origin:
This is an edit of my song ‘axacan’ w the popular ‘amores’ horn melody. This song is based on an oral history of my mother, as a child, traveling deep within the Yungas (cloud forest) to save my grandma’s life. I made the edit traveling the same road, traveling to a place founded by my family, a town called Santa Fe.
Stream “Ax Amores” below:
More about: Elysia Crampton
