I love a great remix, especially when it totally transforms the mood of a song, as if it were simultaneously a collaboration and a tribute. Dasychira—the South African-born artist who gave themself the moniker after a genus of moths and who calls their music magical realism—just released these remixes of five tracks from their 2019 record xDream. The cover of xDream features a Pinnocchio-looking doll sitting on a green floor, hanging out with this creepy rabbit-looking doll with sharp teeth and buttons for eyes. With its rubbery squeaks, high-pitched vocals, twittering, and music-box sounds, xDream is a bit like a dreamy-but-cursed world of toys. And even though the cover of the remix edition shows three of those sharp-toothed dolls, as though they emerged from an original and multiplied, the remixes actually do not ramp up the eeriness.

“Welcome to the new world of xDream,” Dasychira explains. “The playground of Monstro, Mimzy and Marlow. Do you dare cut the ribbon tied round Pandora's box and join them?” Indeed it is a new world of xDream! One could imagine it as a microcosm that lives within the first world. For instance, on Yikii’s “Carved Reality Moon Sacrifice” version of “Toon World,” the original’s ticking sounds are morphed into cuckoo clocks and something like a children’s bomb, a murky puppet land turned into uncanny nursery where the dolls might kill you. At the hands of Kamixlo, “Swirl,” with its silken Ocean in the palm of my hand, becomes “Spiralized,” more silvery and stuttering, and twice as long, as though stretched and wound on a loom into mercury and ice. Charity’s edit of “xDream” layers a tumbling staccato expanse with serene, yearning vocals. And Golin’s spin on “Pandora” mutates a teetering alien landscape into a J-Pop banger that’s ready for the club. She sings, “Turn it up because you know it’s the only way.” Amen.