Road Music – Disc#5

Silent Alarm Remixed by Bloc Party

With our legs aching and our bellies rumbling after a long day hiking, we jumped in the van and headed out of El Chaltén on Ruta 23.

It was around 6pm and as we drove out the town our mirrors were quickly filled with a beautiful late day vista of Fitz Roy, resisting being wrapped in the advancing night clouds it wanted to salute our departure.

As we headed east with with the mountains fading in our mirrors and Lago Viedma shimmering to our right, what music could complement this natural beauty? We choose the Remix version of Silent Alarm by Bloc Party. It fitted our mood perfectly.

As the name suggests, this album consists of all of the original Silent Alarm songs but just remixed. In the majority the outcome are chilled dance tracks, which as we met Ruta 40 and headed towards oddly named town – Gobernador Gregores – added an almost mystical backing note to the scenery we were darting through.

The remixes of Like Eating Glass, Helicopter and Positive Tension are great tracks to start the album and you often get drawn in to wondering if Kele’s lyrics are ever going to come. As Ruta 40 had one of its random ‘Fin de Pavemento’ moments and our smooth pace dropped to a rattling and jarring 40kph the music became more edgy, more intense with Price of Gasoline and Luno noticeably enjoyable tunes in my view.

We arrived at our destination town to Ruta 40 in a state of total construction and the route apparently taking us back away from the town across a bridge that was surely defunct?? Eventually our senses seemed to take is to the municipal campsite and our prayers were answered with hot showers and everything!! I concocted a omelette style delicious mess for dinner as darkness fell and a beer was had as we pressed play again on the album we’d just enjoyed so much.

Favourite Song: Track 2 : Helicopter