Review
Genre and Mood
Asaf Avidan & the Mojos sang it and Wankelmut remade it: One Day / Reckoning Song (Wankelmut Remix) [Radio Edit] is the short cut of the house remix that Wikipedia files under house, folktronica and trip hop, and that one review said had all the hallmarks of classical minimal techno. The mood stays bittersweet and nostalgic: Wankelmut heard in the original a settling of accounts with a fading love that still sounds positive, and the remix carries it at dance-floor pace.
Song Summary
Wankelmut, a young Berlin DJ, heard Reckoning Song on a trip to the United States. In the winter of 2011 he reworked it in Ableton Live, cutting and filtering the recording and adding a simple four-four groove, and posted it on SoundCloud without Avidan’s permission. Avidan learned of it on Facebook and replied that it sounded nice but was not his style. The track spread through blogs and clubs; Four Music, which held the rights to the original, released it in June 2012, and this radio edit runs about three and a half minutes.
Musical Breakdown
No source describes the edit section by section, so this breakdown follows what the sources say was done to the original.
Intro
Listen for what comes first, the added groove or the voice, and how soon Avidan arrives.
Chorus
The “one day” lines, from Avidan’s own vocal, are repeated through the track: the hook Wankelmut built on and the part Avidan later called the remix’s biggest problem.
Outro
The edit ends where a radio version must, long before the full club mix of more than seven minutes.
Concepts in Focus
A remix can be made from nothing but the finished song. Wankelmut did not re-record anything: he cut and filtered the Asaf Avidan & the Mojos – Reckoning Song and gave it a simple four-four groove.
A radio edit is the short version for broadcasting: 3:30 or 3:33 against 7:16 or 7:18 for the full mix, depending on the format.
The music video, directed by Daniel Franke and Sander Houtkruijer, follows three performance artists through a city by night. This page embeds the second, daylight version, now on Wankelmut’s VEVO channel.
Artistic Context
Wankelmut is Jacob Dilßner, born in 1987 and raised in Friedrichshain, East Berlin, where he took piano lessons. He was studying philosophy and political science and DJing at Berlin clubs such as Sisyphos when he made the remix; his name is the German word for fickleness. Compare Lilly Wood and The Prick, Robin Schulz – Prayer in C (Robin Schulz Radio Edit), the same route two years later.
Impact and Reception
The remix topped the charts in Germany for seven weeks, Austria for six and Switzerland for seven, and reached number one in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy and number 30 in the UK. In Germany alone it sold about 1.2 million, and it was nominated as hit of the year at the 2013 Echo Awards. Avidan later called it very important for his career. Press play and hear a voice from 2008 meet a beat from 2012.
