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Sir Paul McCartney gets down and funky with DJ Hellraiser

Anthony Barnes,Arts,Media Correspondent
Sunday 15 May 2005 00:00 BST
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He's a grandfather in his 60s, but Sir Paul McCartney could soon be the toast of the dancefloor generation. The ex-Beatle, who has long refused to let his back catalogue be tampered with, has turned to one of the UK's most cutting-edge DJs to rework his recordings.

He's a grandfather in his 60s, but Sir Paul McCartney could soon be the toast of the dancefloor generation. The ex-Beatle, who has long refused to let his back catalogue be tampered with, has turned to one of the UK's most cutting-edge DJs to rework his recordings.

Already tracks - under the name Twin Freaks - are being circulated to clubs and have been played on BBC Radio 1's hip early-hours show The Blue Room.

McCartney has teamed up with Freelance Hellraiser - real name Roy Kerr - one of the most revered mixers operating today, in a movement that splices together existing tracks to create a completely new sound. His best-known example was the 2002 track "A Stroke of Genius"', in which he spliced Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" with The Strokes' single "Hard to Explain". It became an underground phenomenon and took the concept of unofficial "bootleg" mixes into the mainstream.

Now Kerr is in demand for official remixes and was commissioned by McCartney to tamper with some of his tracks to be played during the warm-up to his shows.

They have now created an album - also called Twin Freaks after a painting McCartney did in 1990 - to be released on 21 June.

Kerr has gone back through the musician's entire back catalogue to find material he could transform. Twelve have made the album, including "Maybe I'm Amazed" from his 1970 debut solo album. The first single, "Really Love You", was on his 1997 release Flaming Pie.

Kerr said: "There is such an amazing album to be made of some of Paul's unknown tracks ... the young audience would lap up now".

An insider on the project said: "Paul just loves the mixes Roy has done and wanted to release them."

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But it can be a perilous route to boost credibility. Madonna was panned for her rap on American Life.

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