Desert Island Dicks — "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (AMP007) (single)

If you're one of the many who have found legitimate reasons to despise Feb. 14th, the noise miscreants in Desert Island Dicks have released a Valentine's Day single that might pique your interest. Nothing the Dicks do ever seems to be straightforward, so it was a fairly safe bet they weren't going to buy into the standard hearts-and-flowers template, and here they don't disappoint.

De facto Dicks spokesman #12 (none of the others are ever identified) offered this explanation:

The single in question is a two-track cover of Joy Division's now-iconic "Love Will Tear Us Apart". Each Valentine's Day, many thousands of people may feel compelled to buy V-Day paraphernalia as a de rigueur activity rather than as a sincere expression of romantic feeling (notwithstanding whether said feeling is present or absent; this is irrelevant). An ironic flipside to this coin is "Love Will Tear Us Apart", a song expressing a contrary, somewhat fatalistic view, yet which a large amount of groups learn to play, and produce their own version of, ostensibly as a kind of alt.rock "rite of passage", and again, not necessarily representative of the feeling behind it.

We have produced two versions of the same record by way of commentary on this phenomenon. The first version, subtitled "consecutive mix", is sampled from 103 existing versions of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by a variety of stylistically divergent artists. Each cover version is represented by a one- or at most two-bar sample, which are reassembled mosaically in the order of the original song. The second, subtitled "simultaneous mix", simply plays all 103 versions at the same time.

It is hoped that the published studies will provide some directions for future research in the area of culture and management styles.

"Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth."

Credits
Written by Curtis, Sumner, Hook, Morris.

Artists sampled (in order): Joy Division / Vitamin String Quartet / Magick / Scapula Elevata / Chuzpe / Hanky Park feat. Peter Hook / Flowing Tears & Withered Flowers / Bis / Jah Division / Broken Social Scene / Everyone's a Crook vs. ILS / The Blood Divine / Complete Stone Roses / Clock Strikes 13 / Nordloef / Evelyn Evelyn / Michael John / Albert Kuvezin & Yat-Kha / Trance to the Sun / Rebecca Hancock and the Prison Wives / New Order / Hawksley Workman / Last Days of Radio / Paul Young / Ecstatics / Dahmnait Doyle / In the Nursery / Boy Division / Bloom 05 / Nouvelle Vague / Swans (red version) / Ortzroka / Rodolphe Burger / Kaycee (Gus Gus mix) / Fall Out Boy / The Cure / Invisible Limits / Squarepusher / Slapper / Die Art / Cienfuegos & Mimi Maura / The Sky About to Rain / The Diary / V/Vm / Jose Gonzalez / Kiki & Herb / Sensifer / The Shanes / Pribata Idaho / Amadea & the In-Betweeners / Eon Blue Void / U2 / The Real Bang / Kismet / Philistine / Calexico / Kvinton / Peltz / Michelle Darkness / Honeyroot / Dumb Blonde, Dead. / Poon Up! / Ian Field / Final Virus / Swans (black version) / Tiger Baby / Mike Relm / Testament / Red House Painters (live) / The Motion Sick / Tea Party / The King / Schulz / Lispboston / 10,000 Maniacs (live) (allegedly) / Jenny K Jones / Even Vast / P. J. Proby / Jansky Noise / Nerina Pallot / Itty Bitty Kitty Titties vs. Big Fat Cat Tats / Oysterband / Simple Minds / Morten Abel / Ghost Parade / Susanna and the Magical Orchestra / Stanton-Miranda / Pixeltoy / Jarboe / Albanopower / The Parsonage / Brothers Past / 12:24 / Unbroken / Worm Is Green / Slumber Party / The Carnival of Fools / Opium Den / World Wide Spies / Acrojunk / djstranger / Wundergraft / Philip Boa & The Voodooclub

Production by Desert Island Dicks.

Artwork by Lachlann Rattray for Dreamguts.

Desert Island Dicks 2010. Experiments can go down as well as up.

Make of that what you will, i guess! Happy V-Day.

DOWNLOAD: 
 "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (AMP007)

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mp3: Desert Island Dicks – "Love Will Tear Us Apart (consecutive mix)"
mp3: Desert Island Dicks – "Love Will Tear Us Apart (simultaneous mix)"