MOTO SOLO unveil Daniel Avery remix of “Wait and Wait” alongside new video [Interview]

MOTO SOLO’s evolving remix project for “Wait and Wait” continues to build momentum this week with the release of the Daniel Avery rework on May 13, completing a two-part reinterpretation series that also features a separate version from Ghostly International co-founder Matthew Dear.

The Avery remix arrived yesterday, while the official music video for the track is out today (May 15), marking a tightly spaced rollout that underscores the momentum behind the release campaign ahead of MOTO SOLO’s forthcoming debut LP.

The series brings together a striking lineup of collaborators. UK producer and composer Daniel Avery reimagines “Wait and Wait” as a dense, psychedelic wash of sound—layering distorted synth textures over a shuffling, propulsive rhythm section.

Known for acclaimed remixes of artists including The Cure and New Order, Avery pushes the track into a more hallucinatory space, blurring shoegaze atmosphere with club-driven intensity.

The original track features Queens of the Stone Age bassist Michael Shuman, who also plays a key role in shaping MOTO SOLO’s recent work and is producing the project’s upcoming debut album. His presence continues to connect the remix series back to the project’s core sonic identity.

On the first installment of the series, Dear delivered a stark, pulse-focused reinterpretation of “Wait and Wait,” emphasizing rhythmic restraint and negative space. Dear described the creative process as one rooted in shared influences rather than stylistic contrast.

“On paper, MOTO SOLO’s music and mine might seem like they come from different places, but beneath the surface, there are a lot of shared intersections,” Dear said. “It felt less like remixing a song and more like remixing our overlapping influences and shared musical experiences.”

For MOTO SOLO, the project reflects a broader artistic continuum led by Bobby Tamkin, whose background spans experimental and alternative music scenes, including work with Seattle group Hovercraft and his own project, Xu Xu Fang. His career has included releases through labels such as Kompakt Records, with previous remix contributions from label head Jörg Burger, and recognition in publications including Rolling Stone and MOJO Magazine.

Recent MOTO SOLO material has also seen collaboration with Grammy-winning engineers Michael Harris (Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys) and Emily Lazar (The Prodigy, Moby), further reinforcing the project’s blend of experimental textures and high-end studio craftsmanship.

With the Daniel Avery remix now closing out the two-part series, attention shifts toward MOTO SOLO’s forthcoming debut LP—produced by Michael Shuman—which continues to position the project at the intersection of shoegaze haze, industrial-leaning electronics, and expansive alternative rock experimentation.

The “Wait and Wait” remix series brings together very distinct voices in Daniel Avery and Matthew Dear—what made these two artists the right counterparts for reimagining this track, and how did their approaches reshape your understanding of the original?

The unknown was the driving factor. Daniel and Matthew are true artists who defy convention. They are essentially formless when it comes to genre, so I knew I would receive something I could never predict, and I am glad it turned out that way. Their approaches actually furthered my understanding of the original more so than they reshaped it. They both isolated one or two vocal lines from the original that perfectly encapsulated its meaning: the agony and hopelessness of waiting for something that may never come. Daniel focused on "I waited 'til the rain was done," while Matthew chose "I wait and I wait…and I feel it." In both cases, those repeated phrases distilled the emotional core of the track in a way that surprised me in its simplicity.

The Daniel Avery remix leans into a dense, hallucinatory texture while Matthew Dear’s version emphasizes restraint and negative space—did you intentionally seek this kind of duality, or did it emerge organically once the artists engaged with the material?

I didn't seek out that duality intentionally. It emerged organically. There's no way I could tell artists of this caliber what to do or how to work off of each other or me. The fact that their versions are so different from one another is actually the best possible outcome. Of course there are elements of their music that I love and at the very least I hoped that some of them would appear in their remixes. They've also remixed each other in the past (Matthew as Audion), so I knew there was an inherent creative synergy between them. Even though the approaches are radically different, there's still a shared sensibility running through both interpretations.

The rollout has been tightly sequenced with the Avery remix and the video arriving within days of each other—how important is visual and release pacing in building momentum for this phase of the project ahead of your debut LP?

My visuals are meant to further communicate the story and emotional intent of the songs. I suppose if my music was more predicated on image or personna, then the visuals might serve a larger role in defining the overall aesthetic. But for me, they're more of an opportunity to be creative and allow people to dream or interpret the songs in their own way. I produced, edited and directed the last few MOTO SOLO videos myself, and I see them as short narrative pieces. I'm not sure anyone has picked up on that yet, but they're not just collections of random images (despite calling them visualizers). There's meaning, implication, and suggestion throughout all of them. You'll probably never see me lip-syncing in a MOTO SOLO video, which might be an important part of an album rollout for someone else, but it's never been central to what I'm trying to communicate visually. It's sort of why I don't want to appear in my social media posts.

The original track features Michael Shuman, who is also producing your upcoming album—how does his presence bridge the remix interpretations back to the core identity of MOTO SOLO?

Daniel pulled in Shuman's bass part from the original, and it is a part that I love. I was delightfully surprised that he chose to use it, because it functions almost as a melodic hook in the original track. Even though Daniel took the remix into his own world stylistically, that element still connects it back to an integral part of the song.

Both remixers come from distinct but overlapping experimental traditions—what did this project reveal to you about the “hidden hooks” or structural depth in your own songwriting that maybe you hadn’t fully recognized before?

I noticed on these remixes that both Daniel and Matthew focused on particular sections and repeated them. Unlike the original, which moves through several parts, they each honed in on a specific theme or section and built around that repetition (primarily with the vocals). That was a great surprise for me, because it revealed how certain fragments of the song can function almost like standalone ideas. Perhaps in the future, I will think more about a few good ideas rather than cramming too much information into one piece.

As attention now shifts toward the forthcoming debut LP, how do these remixes function within the larger narrative arc of the project—are they reinterpretations, expansions, or early signals of where the album is headed sonically?

More than anything, the remixes furthered conceptual possibilities. For example, on Daniel's mix, when the first distorted sounds come in after the intro, the progression is something I never thought of in the context of the original. But it sounds so evil and menacing (in the best possible way) that it opens up new considerations for the future. With both Daniel and Matthew, I also realized that repeated vocal lines can have just as much, if not more, impact than trying to push an entire narrative with lots of words. Kurt Cobain was really good at this. You immediately understand the emotion when Kurt sings, "Grandma take me home." In the same way, Matthew's "I wait and I wait…and I feel it" and Daniel's "I waited 'til the rain was done" say everything they need to say. The emotional point has already been made.

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