Premiere: Cut Copy’s ‘We Are Explorers (Turkish Prison Remix)’

A Turkish prison isn’t the first place you’d think to throw a dance party. But that’s the name of the production outfit that got hold of Cut Copy’s big-tent electro-house single “We Are Explorers” for a new remix (and a Pop & Hiss exclusive premiere).

The Australian quartet Cut Copy has long been a festival favorite for its romantic, upbeat floor-fillers. The band has taken an interesting turn into brain-frying psychedelic imagery on its newest album, “Free Your Mind,” and this remix underscores those moods.

It starts full of bendy Detroit house chords and Balearic sunshine, before taking a hard turn into eerie, minor-key “Midnight Express” soundtrack terrain (a film whose jail setting is, we suspect, where the moniker might have come from).

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Turkish Prison -- a spinoff of Cut Copy’s countrymen Midnight Juggernauts -- proves very capable at putting the band’s melodies into new contexts, preserving the song but tweaking the vibe. If your springtime pool party is turning into something darker by the end of the day, this is the tune to put on when things start getting weird.

Cut Copy is coming to the Hollywood Palladium on April 1. Listen to the track below, and limber up for some jacuzzi-soaked day-drinking (and a long night to follow).

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