A Mike Trask Remix!

Vancouver-based producer Farshad Edalat gives Mike Trask’s single, The Painter, a splash of new colour and the results are amazing.

Matt Carter

Mike Trask knows how to keep things interesting. From his distinct and unique approach to songwriting to his self-produced videos, every new release from Trask not only deserves our attention, it demands and commands it. So whenever I see something new from him pop up in my feed, I find it impossible to ignore. There’s always a satisfying payoff.

His latest release is no exception.

To make something old new again, Trask passed the lead single from his brilliant 2021 full-length album, T.V. Dinner, over to the capable hands of his brother-in-law Farshad Edalat to see what he could come up with using the layers of audio. The resulting track, The Painter (Shadi Remix) is unlike anything fans have come to expect from the Gardener of Memramcook.

Trask credits his frequent collaborator and part time manager Adam Mowery for coming up with the idea.

“I said to Adam, ‘What can I do between album cut single releases?’, explains Trask. “He said, ‘You should do a remix,’ and I said, ‘I don’t even know what that is,’ and he said, ‘Neither do I.’ I said, ‘My brother-in-law Farshad Edalat in Vancouver is part of a popular R & B/ Dance group called Dirty Radio. I’ll ask him about it!’. And the rest is history.

“Basically, I always love challenging myself and doing something new and this was for sure that,” said Trask. “The remix is totally Farshad’s brain child. He made The Painter sound contemporary and modern and also I was like, ‘Is that me singing?’. He really made whatever I did shine and fit his vision. He is such a talented guy. I knew he would be the perfect fit for the first remix project.”

Mowery admits to being a little surprised the whole thing came together as well as it did. Pitching something so out-of-the-park, it could have gone either way.

“I’m very surprised it came into fruition, and pleasantly surprised it actually came out so well,” said Mowery. “I think the whole thing is fun. It’s out of character, and is a passable dance track, so current fans can enjoy just how weird it is to hear Trask in this setting, while new fans can check out the back catalog. It’s a win win!

“I’ve always said to Mike, ‘You have an audience, they just need a product they can support.’ So, that was true, Trask’s latest single and LP are getting more love than ever. But we want to expand that fanbase, and to do that we have to find the fans. The Painter (Shadi Remix) is an attempt to find Trask fans where we never looked before. Like with fans of modern dance music, for instance. It is my perspective that there are lots of Mike Trask fans out there, they just don’t know it yet,” he said.