Brian Hazard, the mentor of the American band Color Theory, made an excellent Depeche Mode tribute album by himself called Color Theory presents Depeche Mode.
Brian is so confident in the quality of his work that he even made a guarantee that anyone who bought the CD and didn’t like it would get their money back, assuming that any Depeche Mode fan would like it, and he is absolutely right.
In addition to the album being very good, there was also a Remix Contest to remix his covers, which were made available every month to everyone who bought the CD, and that’s where I participated and was one of the 12 chosen with my remix of “Sweetest Perfection”.
“Wow Freddy! This is amazing! Maybe I am biased because you are working with my vocals, but I think this is the best remix I’ve heard from you yet! The levels are all great, and I love what you’ve done with the chord progression. And you moved it to 4/4 time from 12/8 time very smoothly. I actually thought of doing that myself when I recorded it! Really cool stuff! Awesome! Perfect!”
Brian Hazard
All the remixes are really good to excellent, and it was an honor to be among the chosen ones, mainly due to the quality of all the work involved, and also for the opportunity to remix songs by one of the most important bands in the world.
- Here is the House (Atomzero Remix)
- I Am You (Chiptune Mix)
- Leave in Silence (Royal Visionaries Mix)
- Sweetest Perfection (Hajas Mix)
- But Not Tonight (Tristraum Remix)
- Sister of Night (Tagiroff Mix)
- Ponytail Girl (Raph Version)
- Here is the House (Vz Chinese Theatre E.C Version)
- It Doesn’t Matter (Fr/action Mix)
- But Not Tonight (Late Night Devotional Mix)
- World Full of Nothing (Midnight Mix)
- Here is the House (Some Stranger’s Funky Pleasure Mix)
- One Caress (Synthetik FM Mix)
- Ponytail Girl (Casm Mix)
My remix was made available in MP3 in July 2004 on the Color Theory presents Depeche Mode website, only in the restricted area for those who bought the CD. Brian said that it would be a bit difficult to release the remixes on CD straight away since he would have to pay for the licenses, but that he was thinking about releasing them in the future depending on the sales response, etc., even if it was just a few copies.
So at the end of 2004 I was working on my album Synthphony REMIXed! Vol.2 and since my remixes hadn’t yet gotten a release worthy of them, I asked him for permission to release them on my CD, which was promptly granted and ended up being one of the highlights of the album released in 2005.
- Virtual Server “Why (Would I) [Hajas 2K4 RMX]”
- Droom “Blood Culture [Hajas Arena Mix]”
- Real Life “Painless [Hajas 5T4T3 RMX]”
- Opium “Faked Emotions [Hajas Vladivostok Mix]”
- Tristraum “I’m Under No One [Hajas SWOS Mix]”
- New Concept “Station Man [Hajas NER Mix]”
- Anything Box “Clean [Hajas Hope Mix]”
- !Distain “Sex’n’Cross [Hajas Universal Mix]”
- Project David “We’ll Go On [Hajas Dark Mix]”
- The Dignity of Labour “XRV [Hajas Rio Mix]”
- Color Theory presents Depeche Mode “Sweetest Perfection [Hajas Sloth Mix]”
- Will Loconto and Steve Paul “The Last Good Day [Hajas Lost Mix]”
In 2011, he officially released his remix album for the first time on a variety of digital platforms, such as Spotify, YouTubeand Bandcamp.
