Small Black: "Despicable Dogs (Washed Out remix)"

Count me out-ish on Life of Leisure and know that I would have to eat steroids laced with Joe Jonas’ soul every day for the rest of my twenties to have the strength to give less of a shit about chillwave, but holy hell is this good. The version of “Despicable Dogs” that shows up on Small Black’s EP is enjoyable but only vaguely, bearing a melody that comes off as the least common denominator of its (already modest) objectives: social, material, practical, disposably grand. I could never hear it again, but I’ll bet you a dollar it makes a dope mix on Genius.

Washed Out doesn’t damn “Despicable Dogs” with faint praise so much as clinically hate-fuck it. The best remixes tend, of course, to happen at the edge of recognition, behind the backs of their sources. Washed Out steps off this edge slightly but tears things down still: slowing the tempo over a punch line of synth; scrubbing down the vocals past “rote indie rock” (perhaps the original’s most identifiable flaw); contributing a layer but adding a dimension. The results are staggering, and carry “Despicable Dogs” past the genre-middleweight it was destined to be and toward an entirely harder-hitting class. (“Less suicidal nephew of ‘All the Umbrellas in London’” is a class, right?)

In Platform’s take on the original version, the reviewer notes that he could have imagined “Despicable Dogs” on the Lost in Translation soundtrack (italics mine, boring film hers). I mention this because—crazy coincidence—in the Lost in Translation sequel I am currently spec-scripting, Bill Murray runs into Scarlett Johansson at a karaoke bar, sings this, has sex with her in the bathroom and dies. The end. Totes chillwave, am I wrong? We haven’t filmed yet but already the praise is pouring in. “Ego and synth are two tastes that go down smooth together!” said the critic I just made up and is myself.