Tom Shear, the only member of the American band Assemblage 23, posted the vocals and some other samples of the song “Document” from their 2002 album Defiance for Download on his website in the fan area, encouraging everyone to remix his song.
A friend told me about these samples after hearing some of my remixes, so I decided to go check them out and try something with them.
I had never heard this song because I hadn’t bought their latest album yet, and I liked the vocals right away, but not the samples so much. So I decided to do it my way and refused to listen to the original so as not to influence me in any way when making my remix.
I really liked the end result, so I went looking for the original and downloaded a part of the song from the band’s Official Website, just to check if the vocals in the chorus were in line, and I was shocked by the huge difference between the versions.
Since my version was quite different and much softer than the original, I wasn’t sure if Tomwould like my remix. Even so, I sent it to him to listen to, and to my delight, he loved it and put it up for download on his website along with the other best remixes I had sent.
“Freddy – I like the remix a lot! Quite slick sounding… sounds like you spent quite awhile working on it…”
Tom Shear
I then posted it on the EGN forums and received a warm welcome of praise, which made me very happy.
In 2004, during the production of my remix album, I did everything I could to get it released. But despite the approval of Tom Shear and Synthphony Records, Metropolis Records needed to authorize it, which unfortunately did not happen. They even proposed a fee of US$100 for it to be released, a very high amount for me at the time, in fact more than 5x higher than what was paid for the release of the Depeche Mode song that would also be on the same album. That’s why my record company didn’t want to pay this amount to license this song and this remix was never officially released, remaining exclusive to the Assemblage 23 website and replications all over the internet. I ended up publishing it with a better mix and mastered both on my YouTube and on my Bandcamp.
Some interesting facts are that I sent my remix to the English band Mesh, offering my remix services. They responded that they really liked my version and would contact me when needed. I’ve never had the honor of remixing my favorite band, but in 2006 they released a single with a cover of “Document”, in a spectacular version, which sounds much more like my version than the original. It seems that I had my share of blame here.
Assemblage 23 itself has been leaving behind its dirtier sound and becoming more melodic over time. Another influence or just maturation? We’ll never know, but A23‘s sound has been pleasing me more and more every year.