Async – Remodels
Critical reception
Critical reception
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As [AllMusic](/wiki/AllMusic "AllMusic") journalist Paul Simpson summarized *Async – Remodels*, "the collection ultimately ends up feeling like a tribute as well as a remix album, serving to highlight Sakamoto's considerable influence on generations of forward\-thinking electronic musicians." *[PopMatters](/wiki/PopMatters "PopMatters")* found it to be "every bit as exploratory and delightfully weird as *async*," and *[Exclaim!](/wiki/Exclaim%21 "Exclaim!")* stated that "Everything works here, in its own unique way." Eoin Hanlon of Australian magazine *Beat* called it "varied and ambitious," writing it has an "emotional progression that feels as celebratory as it does meditative." The diversity of styles was also praised in a review published in *[All About Jazz](/wiki/All_About_Jazz "All About Jazz")*, stating it "represents one of those rare occasions when two dissimilar ingredients give rise to something unforeseeably strange and new." Beta, also praising the album as ambitious and "tak\[ing] the biggest risks," honored the remodels as "natural extensions" of *async*, reasoning that they "all reveal the sizable debt and sonic paternity of Sakamoto on their own music." However, he also found the last three tracks to be the LP's weakest material, reasoning that S U R V I V E's recut "doesn't know what to do beyond adding dramatic synth washes to the original" and Stott's rework was "too light to be memorable." *Sputnikmusic* claimed, "*Remodels* at worst does indeed bastardize Sakamoto's intentions, \[...] but the willingness to deviate from the original composition – and adding lush vocalizations and beats in their place – is a prime component of what makes \[it] more than a simple throwaway remix album."

In a more mixed review, Daniel Martin\-McCormick of *[Pitchfork](/wiki/Pitchfork_%28website%29 "Pitchfork (website)")* wrote that *Async – Remodels* "glitters with aspiration and emotion, and yet rings slightly hollow." He reasoned that the remixes "simply struggle to cohere, or cohere a little too much. Across these mixes there's a surprising uniformity of tone and timbre, a kind of austere grandeur with lots of high end reverb trails, big percussion hits, and a sense of frozen futurism." He also panned the album's lack of female contributors given the number of women in 2018's experimental electronic scene such as [Laurel Halo](/wiki/Laurel_Halo "Laurel Halo"), [Holly Herndon](/wiki/Holly_Herndon "Holly Herndon"), [Suzanne Ciani](/wiki/Suzanne_Ciani "Suzanne Ciani"), [Fatima Al Qadiri](/wiki/Fatima_Al_Qadiri "Fatima Al Qadiri"), [Elysia Crampton](/wiki/Elysia_Crampton "Elysia Crampton"), [Nkisi](/wiki/Nkisi "Nkisi"), Pan Daijing, [Pharmakon](/wiki/Pharmakon "Pharmakon"), [Jlin](/wiki/Jlin_%28musician%29 "Jlin (musician)"), and Stellar OM Source. Daniel Bromfield wrote the album uses the "postmodern [hellscape](/wiki/Hellscape "Hellscape") aesthetic" of avant\-garde producers on its source material, which "sacrifices a lot of what makes *async* special, like its innocence and its bittersweet awareness of the transience of life." Alex Shutti of *Gigsoup* stated it would appeal to listeners of accessible music, but "any listener who has heard the original work can't help but want to return to the original project afterwards."


What is the overall impression of Async – Remodels?