Blending an array of styles including rock, jazz and pop, Renee and Lang Bliss, AKA BlissBliss have proven themselves as a duo not afraid to experiment with their sound and in recent months, they’ve also impressed and earned themselves a number of new fans having taken on, reworked and released several versions of the Marvin Gaye classic “What’s Going On?” PopWrapped are delighted to premiere the video for their latest release, the Paul Goodyear remix of the track, and caught up with the pair to find out how they’ve been keeping busy during the Corona crisis and what their future release plans are.
What have the two of you been up to since we last interacted?
We have been working in the studio finishing up vocals on some new songs for our next project which we’re planning to release after the first of the year. We played a show locally in February and were planning on booking more gigs until the virus came along.
How has the Corona Virus crisis impacted your personal and professional plans?
That’s a loaded question! As mentioned before, on a professional level we weren’t able to pursue our plans of booking more gigs and playing out live. It also affected the timing on the release of the remixes, as the plan was to release it much sooner than May 8th. I think most of us involved with the remix project were hopeful things would have opened up by now. The inability to play out live has affected not only musicians and bands but also DJ’s out spinning remixes. We made the decision to go ahead and release the remixes because the message of the song was a timeless one and given where things are at this point, it seemed like the time to release it. We’ve used the extra time as we mentioned before, to finish our new project, and continue to make people aware of the “What’s Going On?” remixes.
On a personal level we are thankful that our family is well. In times like these it’s always good to take stock of what to be thankful for and to remember, “this too shall pass.”
What is it about this remix of “What’s Going On?” that you like so much and how have you found fans’ responses to the various remixes to be so far?
This is the third remix we’ve had done by Paul Goodyear. He did a remix of our song, “No Apology” from our last EP, “3”. We really like his approach to the remixes he’s done for us. What we like the most is that Paul kept the original structure of the song in place with the lead vocal, backgrounds and sax. He stayed close to the cover we did, which was really close to Marvin Gaye’s original arrangement. Paul’s musical take on it is funky, and a bit old school with a great groove. Last year we went to San Francisco to do a photo shoot and several video shoots. One of those was with Paul. We had a lot of fun hanging out and shooting the video with him in the club. It was great to just perform the vocals to the remix just like I had recorded on our band version of the song. We’ve also done a “live in studio” performance of “What’s Going On?” to Paul’s remix tracks.
We’ve had great responses on all the remixes. Each producer/remixer had such a distinctive approach to “What’s Going On?”. All of the DJ’s have their own fans that follow them and we’ve been fortunate to have some great remixers on this project. It’s been fun to watch some of them on Twitch and other streaming platforms and see the comments posted about the song. It’s been fascinating to watch for Lang and I, because we are not primarily in the dance/remix genre, so it’s all new to us too.
Have you started thinking about which songs you might like to record/remix next?
I don’t think we’ve thought that far ahead yet, as we are still seeing some activity with the “What’s Going On?” remixes, with an extra remix coming out soon.
You’ve got a new single out in the UK next month – what can you tell me or tease about it?
We are releasing our White Label remixes on August 28th, with the focus, yeah, primarily being in the UK. The “What’s Going On?” remix is by Guz; he’s from the Netherlands. Included on the White Label remixes are an awesome, bootleg remix of “No Apology” by Rob Moore and the DJ AKI Big Room 3AM Circuit Megamix. Also, the Hex Hector, Dave Aude and Lee Dagger’s remixes from our current remix project will be serviced to radio, DJs and clubs in the UK, and the Paul Goodyear remix will be promoted in Australia.
Check out the video for the Paul Goodyear SanFranDisko remix of “What’s Going On?” below and for more information on BlissBliss, visit their website, give their page a like on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.
