The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Falling Over (DJ Downfall Sprechenbann Mix) by DJ Downfall

Sean Price aka “El Presidente" ran Fortuna Pop records for a couple of decades with a gentle, loving, sweet nature masked by Olympic-class acerbity. I can’t help but like a man whose reputation for curmudgeonliness stretches right round the world, even if we haven’t always got on.

He worked with the Pains on their first album before things turned sour and they buggered off to minor fame and unknown fortune elsewhere. I got asked to mix this in 2009.

I believe The Pains recorded everything pretty much themselves, and the lead vocal I got sent was awful - badly edited, riddled with digital artifacts, and Autotuned to buggery. Something like that can’t really be the sonic focus of the track (as it can if it was well recorded - see Allo Darlin (qv). It needed something loud and fast propping it up.

I’ve been a fan of Depeche Mode’s debut Speak And Spell album for a couple of decades, at least. I can still remember exactly where I was when I heard Just Can’t Get Enough for the first time. I even sampled the little ‘tick’ electro-percussion sound on this remix off the 12” mix of it, because I’m a cheeky bastard. It was fun to do a homage that was quite that shameless.

It's called the Sprechenbann mix, because that was a pseudo-German word supposed to mean Speak & Spell. It doesn't mean anything. There is an advantage to having a nonce word in your track title though - it's easy to find all the mentions of it on the interweb.

If I did it again, I’d stick another synth line or two over the verses, and tick the tempo up by about 5pm. I’m really pleased with the late entry synth melody just before the last chorus. That’s a good bit. I like that bit when it happens.

The best bit of this was playing it for the first time to Kip, chief Pain, at the Hangover Lounge when he was over to tour. At the end, he ripped off the headphones and high-fived me. I think he used the ‘bro’ word. The little things that remind you why you bother.