Exclusive First Listen: Oceantied, Coldcut, Dotdat & More Remix Kiss Nuka's 'Serpentine'

2022 was a pivotal year for Anushka Manchanda aka Kiss Nuka. Between her set for Mixmag LAB, which pushed her to the limelight as a live electronica performer, and her dynamic set at Magnetic Fields Festival 2022, the creative polymath released a single 'I Love The Drive' via Ninja Tunes' Ahead of Our Time imprint followed by her stylistically far-reaching dance EP 'Serpentine'. Traversing a range of energy levels within dance music over 6 tracks, 'Serpentine' cemented Anushka Manchandan's reinvention as an artist that can flip from languid and poetic to dominate the dancefloor.

Expounding upon the works' musicality further, the Mumbai and Spain-based act has invited artists, namely Indian producers dotdat, Oceantied, EZ Riser, Rākhis, Dualist Inquiry, Kohra and FILM, alongside international acts Coldcut, Nathalie Seres and Key Ratio, to reimagine the music with a set of remixes. Ahead of the remix EP's release on June 23, Kiss Nuka, Coldcut and Oceantied share the latter two's remixes exclusively via Wild City.

"In the last year, as I started to dig deeper into the dance floor electronic music soundscape, many of these artists have been a phone call away. This was a way of bringing all these beautiful people together in one place as a celebration," says Anushka. She notes how her compositions originate from a deeply personal place and how the act of allowing other artists to deconstruct them felt like an exercise in vulnerability. "Sharing the stems made me feel kind of vulnerable, like opening a window to a very personal, and quite solitary world. This process reinforced the sense of community, and I do feel it has strengthened my relationships with these artists."

Next to each other, the remixes by Bangalore-based DJ and producer Oceantied and Coldcut, the UK duo of Ninja Tunes' founders Matt Black and Jonathan More, demonstrate the range offered by the compositions. Both acts latch on to the vocals but head with them in opposite directions. "The vocal chops playing in my head pushed me in the direction the remix ended up with quite naturally", says Ketan Bahirat aka Oceantied while Coldcut's Matt Black recounts something similar: "When I first got the stems to the track, I messed around with them for a while and I was trying something beat-y initially. And then I became more entranced by the vocal, and the idea that actually it didn’t need much more to really shine, wondering if we were entering an era of post-beat music."

Oceantied latches onto a vocal snippet of 'Trouble In Paradise' to repeat it into a rhythmic hook with which he curates an onslaught of off-kilter fast-paced drum onslaught made for the dancefloor. Meanwhile, Coldcut takes things in the opposite direction as Anushka's vocals are laid bare into a sombre ballad led by beds of piano (which Matt picked from an improvisation by Flex Machina's Gautham Hebbar, who helped in the studio on the remix), strings and ambiences made out of the echoes of her voice.

Check the remixes above and follow Kiss Nuka for further information.