Some records refuse to stay in the past. Oxia’s Domino came out in 2006 and still walks into rooms like it owns them. That triplet synth melody is one of those hooks DJs and dancers recognise in two bars. Across its versions the track has passed 150 million Spotify streams, and Armada Music is treating the anniversary like the event it is. After Space 92’s remix earlier this year, New York producer Ares Carter gets the official next turn.
Carter did not try to bury the original. He started with the part that makes remixing Domino so risky: that melody. He ran through several versions until he found a bassline that could sit underneath it without fighting it. Once that foundation locked, he says the rest of the remix almost wrote itself. The result keeps the central hook intact and still sounds like his record. That is the brief most remixers of a classic miss.
“Being asked to remix OXIA’s ‘Domino’ is a true honor. It’s such a legendary record, so I really took my time with it,” Carter says. “I went through several versions before finding a bassline that sat right underneath that iconic triplet synth melody, but once it clicked, the rest of the remix almost wrote itself. I wanted to stay true to what made the original so special while bringing it into the current era in my own way.”
The submission tags the cut Melodic Techno, which fits how labels and dancefloors are treating anniversary reworks right now: keep the DNA, update the body. Melodic techno and closely related house lanes have spent the last few years folding older hooks into current club weight. A record this famous is a stress test for that idea. If the bassline and arrangement feel current, a new crowd hears Domino as theirs. If they do not, it is just another tribute.
Carter’s path into that conversation is New York first. He started with an under-18 club residency in the city, then became the official DJ for iLoveMakonnen and learned the floor the hard way on tour. Festival and club dates followed: Electric Zoo, Mysteryland USA, Diplo’s Mad Decent Boat Party, then main-stage Ultra in Japan and Korea in 2019, plus headline rooms across Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau and Tokyo. European and Ibiza dates include Awakenings, Mysteryland, Elrow Marbella, Pacha, Amnesia and UNVRS. Support on his own records has come from Jamie Jones, Joseph Capriati, Keinemusik, Black Coffee and John Summit. Early plays on this Domino remix already include Mita Gami and Adam Ten.
His catalogue shows the same mix of reach and club sense. Faking on Spinnin’ Records passed three million streams, landed a Billboard Dance premiere and editorial playlisting. His official remix of The Chainsmokers’ Push My Luck crossed two million. Next To Me with ILoveMakonnen went to Oliver Heldens’ Heldeep and into large Spotify dance playlists. The through-line he describes now is house, pop and underground influence shaped by years on actual dancefloors.
Armada’s Domino series is doing what major labels do when a 20-year-old record still charts in people’s heads: invite producers who can introduce it to rooms that never heard the Kompakt original. Carter’s version is the New York chapter of that story. The melody stays. The bassline and the frame are his.
What do you think of this take on Domino? Does the new bassline give the classic enough room, or do you still reach for the original first? Drop a comment.
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