Toronto’s enigmatic producer and vocalist, New Chance (aka Victoria Cheong) returns with a remix version of their 2021 debut album Real Time featuring a stacked roster of contributors that includes tough Montreal electronic duo Pelada.
Known as a remixer herself, Cheong reached out to several well known underground artists to craft her nine original tracks in a different light. This experiment extends to Pelada’s notable reworking of “Time Treat Me Right.”
Singer Chris Vargas and producer Tobias Rochman build their own atmosphere around Cheong’s single line refrain, “Time treat me right, I’m asking time to treat me right.” Rochman adds an onslaught of danceable rhythmic instrumentation that shifts between gritty drum machines and harmonious synth swells.
“I treated it as if someone doesn’t treat you right and they wasted your time in doing so,” says Chris Vargas, detailing the emotion behind her Spanish sung lyrics on the remix. Vargas’ lyrics are a great counterbalance to the hypnotic illusion created by Cheong’s dreamy refrain.
“I’ve been a big fan of Pelada since we played a show together years ago. I really appreciate that their music walks that line between dancefloor abandon and a sense of political urgency,” writes Cheong in a statement to Ears to Feed describing the collaborative nature of the remix. “I know they chose this track to remix because it felt like an unlikely choice and that is why they are interesting and innovative artists! Chris brought something so special to this remix by further interpreting the lyrical content. I felt particularly honoured by that.”
Rochman goes onto detail the inner workings of his bruised up instrumentation on the track.
“We were happy when our longtime friend and peer Victoria asked us to remix her song ‘Time Treat Me Right.’ We recorded during lockdown in an apartment we were sharing at the time using the remix as an opportunity to experiment with different tempos, vocal registers, and rhythmic ideas to play against expectation and test different production techniques, writes Rochman in a statement to Ears to Feed. “We purposely tried to keep it as empty as possible, keeping the focus on the original vocal which we applied heavy saturation to make it sound rougher and ‘burnt.’ The main gurgling bass is based on the ‘West Coast Style’ synthesis of Don Buchla, the vocal technique was inspired by Ying Yang Twins’ ‘Whisper Song’ and the spooky string sound was made by a Solina string machine popularized by Joy Division in their song ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.’ We purposely used stock Ableton drum sounds to make it feel like anyone could have produced it, to emphasize that limitations can breed creativity and that it’s not always what you have but how you use it that’s important.”
You can stream the track exclusively down below and preorder the remix album ahead of its release date on November 5 on We Are Time.