There’s a lot we can learn about an artist through a remix, and this isn’t true of elaborate works alone. Even in a simple track like AV Super Sunshine’s “Sink or Swim,” there’s something to get out of the narrative of the dance cut of the song than there is the single on its own, and it starts with the delivery AV is giving us from behind the microphone. His voice is inviting in both of these recordings, but when he’s working out of a big club beat, this is an artist who wants us to focus on the smaller details within a mix. The harmonies he forms are as strong as they come, but what’s more important is the way he forges the story for either track as if to tell us something intimate and guarded from the world.
When the beat is grinding away in the backdrop here, AV Super Sunshine has a couple of chances to break off an indulgent hook just for the sake of making the song feel a little fatter in the climax, and yet he resists. There’s something to be said about this player’s unwillingness to use excess as a placeholder, even when he’s making a club-oriented remix for his fans, and although there’s a lot of muscle developed off of the bassline alone in this piece, there’s never a moment in which it feels like we’re about to be overwhelmed by the size of the instrumentation or the mix on its own.
I definitely get the impression that working as much brawn into this music was a goal of AV Super Sunshine’s from the get-go, mostly because there’s so much of a push from the backdrop no matter which version of the track we’re listening to. The single by itself has a monstrous drive that is made stronger by the emotional vocal our leading man is hoisting up beneath the spotlight here, and I think that because of how much meat is on this groove we’re all the more inclined to synchronize with the rhythm no matter which one of these incarnations of “Sink or Swim” we’re listening to. If there’s a tasteful way to be aggressive, this artist has figured it out – and in the most ironic of circumstances no less.
Once again showing us that he’s one of the most consistent players in all of his scene, AV Super Sunshine unleashes more sonic brilliance made endearing through his words in “Sink or Swim,” and I think his most loyal fans are going to be the audience to get the most out of his performance here. There’s nothing inaccessible about the structure of this composition, but those who are already familiar with AV’s flexibility as a composer and performer are going to be the crowd to really celebrate this for what it is – another dashing, forward-thinking release from an artist who has never wanted to fit into the mainstream model. He’s found his own path to stardom, and he’s enjoying the odyssey here.
Heather Savage