In the years between LCD Soundsystem's premature retirement in 2011—the one with all the fanfare of that goodbye show at Madison Square Garden, later to be documented both in film and on record—frontman/mastermind James Murphy wandered down a few rabbit holes. He was going to open a store called House Of Good that would sell a bunch of random odds-and-ends he liked; he was going to formulate his own coffee brew; he wanted to score New York's subway system. It was almost like a character sketch of the Brooklynite hipster icon drifting through middle age, exploring this or that esoteric inclination.

But who could blame him? In LCD's too-brief first incarnation, Murphy had left behind a small and near-unassailable body of work. There wasn't much else, but that didn't matter: this music had become paradigmatic for a generation. If Murphy wanted to age out into focusing on a series of obscure interests, power to him. He had given us enough.

While it's true that LCD Soundsystem's compact catalog was formidable, it felt like James Murphy had left before he'd said everything he had to say.

That being said: it's damn good to have them back and to have the promise of new LCD material on the horizon. While it's true that LCD's compact catalog was formidable, it felt like the guy had left before he'd said everything he had to say—his intuition and craft were clearly undiminished whenever he did do something musical during those wilderness years.

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And that got me thinking: Sure, we all know and love LCD Soundsystem's three albums already, but there's all this other stuff that got lost in the mix over the years. Not just the occasional musical endeavor he took on while LCD was inactive, but also some ephemera from back in the day.

As LCD Soundsystem prepare to take the stage at Panorama this weekend and march on through their summer of triumphantly headlining festivals, we're all revisiting the stuff that made us fall in love with this band in the first place, and we're all realizing how much promise there still is in a reunited LCD. Before that happens, though, here's a collection of some of the best loose ends in LCD's story. Remixes by Murphy, remixes of his own work, stuff he produced, soundtrack work—these are the little elements that flesh out and enrich the last decade of the man's career.

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David Bowie - "Love Is Lost" (Hello Steve Reich Remix)

Here it is: the moment Murphy finally collided with one of his major influences, one of the influences stitched clearest on his sleeve. David Bowie's surprise comeback album, 2013's The Next Day, was a solid record that intentionally drew from all over his past, specifically nodding to the legend's celebrated Berlin era. "Love Is Lost" is a simmering mid-tempo rocker, but Murphy's remix is near unrecognizable, blowing the original track out into a ten-minute epic, the first half of which is built on a stuttering loop of handclaps and hiccuping synths.

The atmosphere, much like Bowie's Berlin records, is claustrophobic and greyscale. Murphy cultivates tension steadily and strings you along until the last possible moment, when the breakdown finally hits over five minutes in. That second half is gorgeous, a lush and sad passage drenched in synth layers. It's the sound of Murphy meeting up with Bowie up in the cosmos.

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Arcade Fire - "Reflektor"

Murphy and Arcade Fire had reportedly been trying to work together all the way back to the Canadian anthem-indie group's 2007 album Neon Bible. Missed opportunities and missed connections were supposedly one of the reasons Murphy retired LCD in the first place, so during his five-year off-season, he finally got to link up with his friends for their 2013 (supposed) left-turn dance-rock double-album Reflektor.

In general, Arcade Fire didn't push their sound as heavily as they should have, given the noise they made about being oh-so-explorative on their fourth album. But the title track is a moment where Murphy's influence is definitely felt—it's a master class in build-and-release, featuring a handful of infectious climaxes and more grooves than anyone would've previously assumed Arcade Fire had in their arsenal. The sublime presence of a ghostly guest vocal from Bowie doesn't hurt, either.

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Pulp - "After You"

One of the only new pieces of music from Jarvis Cocker since his 2009 solo album Further Complciations, and the only piece of new music to come from Pulp's (sadly) short-lived reunion a few years ago, "After You" actually has its roots way back in the early '00s. Originally a demo left over from the sessions for their autumnal, folk-laced final album (2001's criminally-underrated We Love Life), Pulp exhumed "After You" in late 2012 as a gift to their fans, and they brought James Muprhy on as producer. It was one of those intersections you wouldn't have pictured in the past but made a whole lot of sense once it happened, with Murphy helping Pulp find their sultry disco side again.

It could be Pulp, it could be a solo Jarvis Cocker record—either way, it'd be a dream to have a more thorough collaboration between Murphy and Cocker. Both are gifted lyricists when it comes to wit and cultural observation, and Cocker needs to release another goddamn album already. With LCD reunited, the possibility is probably a pipe dream, but it's too tantalizing to consider the (very distant) prospect of an aging Cocker linking up with Murphy for one last dance.

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Gorillaz - "DoYaThing"

Compared to some of the other selections on this list, it might be a stretch to call "DoYaThing" a highlight of Murphy's extracurricular activities. The concept, at least, is overwhelming. In 2012, Blur frontman/Gorillaz mad scientist Damon Albarn produced a one-off track for Converse, and it included not just James Murphy, but also Andre 3000. That's three geniuses from different milieus, and obviously this would have to be the best thing ever, right?

Well, it kinda feels like a quirky workout compared to some of the titanic pop moments in any of their careers otherwise, never quite hitting the sum of its parts. It's a cool song, with plenty of memorable moments—Andre screaming "I'm the shit!" over a noise-addled ride-out for six minutes feels like some kind of power move on a track featuring three musicians known for doing whatever they damn well please. Mostly, it leaves you wondering about what could happen if Albarn got Murphy and Andre back in the studio with a bit more focus to put something together for the forthcoming Gorillaz album. Hey, it's a possibility—Murphy and Albarn's work had previously crossed paths when the DFA offered up a great remix of the indelible Gorillaz single "DARE," after all.

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LCD Soundsystem - "North American Scum" (Onanistic Dub Mix)

The Onanistic Dub Mix of "North American Scum" is a druggy reimagining of the lead Sound of Silver single that Murphy made with producer Eric Broucek, and which was later compiled on the fleshed-out release of 45:33 (alongside the stunning deep cut "Freak Out/Starry Eyes," which features one of the best grooves Murphy ever crafted). Like the spacey lurch of the Harvey Mix of "All My Friends" or Windsurf's up-in-the-clouds Any Color U Like Remix of "Us V Them", the Onanistic Dub of "North American Scum" is almost completely divorced from the original track. It turns a punk-inflected rave-up into a trippy, wobbly thing. It sounds like your brain got seasick inside your skull. Nancy Whang's lonely, distant cries of "North America!" punctuate the loopiness, like a voice calling you back to shore. Listen to it in faceless airports; listen to it in strange cities.

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M.I.A. - "Paper Planes" (DFA Remix)

In the earlier days of LCD, Murphy did a lot of remixes alongside his erstwhile partner Tim Goldsworthy, billed as the DFA. While LCD became the flagship of DFA as a label, the group that summed up the genre collision core to the label's ethos, the DFA remixes were another place in which Murphy (and Goldsworthy) worked out the synthesis of their various interests. You might know it from Slumdog Millionaire, but one of the most enduring releases from the DFA is the remix of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes."

M.I.A.'s original is one of the defining pop songs of the '00s, and the DFA's take is almost as memorable in an entirely different way. "Paper Planes" is galvanizing: gunshots, M.I.A.'s swagger, a Clash sample as air-raid sirens. The DFA one is a different beast—still tons of swagger, still perfect, built on a very different set of elements that come together just as infectiously. Rather than a late night call-to-arms, it's a sunburnt, cocky strut built for the humidity and radiance of fictional summers.

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LCD Soundsystem - "You Wanted A Hit" (Soulwax Remix)

While Murphy is gifted when it comes to reworking the songs of others, his own work has also proven to be prime material for inspired remixes. There are a handful of remixes of LCD material that rival the originals, or even suggest ways in which the original could've been improved, and one of the finest examples is Soulwax's take on This Is Happening's "You Wanted A Hit." LCD's original has plenty of sprawl, but never quite ignites like it seems to want to. You'd have to see LCD live for the song's latter half to really take off.

But then there's version: it begins with restrained suggestion, and soon hits you alongside the head with the sudden introduction of that buzzing, gnarly synth that begins driving the whole thing. Most of the remix is scuzzy, suited for early morning hours at illegal, industrial club spaces; it takes the glistening comedown of the This Is Happening original and gives it more dirt and muscle. Just when the intensity becomes almost too much, the track fades out in a floaty, gorgeous coda—the wild liftoff finally giving way to the serenity of gliding through air.

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LCD Soundsystem - "I Can Change" (Stereogamus Remix)

"I Can Change" is the naked and emotional centerpiece that lives on as This Is Happening's best track, and one of LCD's finest overall. Where many of LCD's best songs are, otherwise, the epics—think the scope of "All My Friends," the gravity of "Someone Great," or titanic dance tracks like "Yeah" and "Losing My Edge"—the power of "I Can Change" was in Murphy's final capitulation to simply writing a great new wave pop song of the sort he always admired.

In that regard, the Stereogamus remix is going for something entirely different—it takes the concise gem of the original and stretches it out into a dancier version. Running on layers of earworm synths, the Stereogamus remix is the dreamlike return to the emotional wreckage of the original, offering that lose-yourself catharsis as Murphy's vocal yields to the drama of the track's instrumental coda.

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The 'Greenberg' Soundtrack

Amidst working on This Is Happening, Murphy took a detour to try his hand at soundtrack work, providing music for Noah Baumbach's 2010 film Greenberg. When Murphy suggested he would still work on music post-LCD, but in a different capacity, it was easy to imagine a new phase for the aging musician—one that looked more like the singer-songwriter territory he approached with the Greenberg score.

More so than Baumbach's actual film, Murphy's Greenberg soundtrack is a slightly lesser known corner of Murphy's work that warrants revisiting now and again; it has a bunch of gems hidden away on it, and makes for a rewarding counter-narrative to Murphy's artistic persona otherwise. Sure, some of it was characteristically Eno-esque, much of it defined by a wooziness fitting for a middle-aged dude drifting through life like a twentysomething, as Greenberg's central character does. Otherwise, you have "Oh You (Christmas Blues)," a non-album LCD track featuring their take on Lennon's brand of ragged blues-squall, while "If You Need A Friend" is a tossed-off yet catchy acoustic ditty akin to something from McCartney's first solo outing. "People," another standout, sounds like Brian Wilson on narcotics.

With LCD back in action, this might remain, at least for a while, the only glimpse we get of an alternate universe in which Murphy had refashioned himself as a weirdo '70s singer-songwriter, slotting his songs alongside Albert Hammond's "It Never Rains In Southern California."

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James Murphy - "We Used To Dance"

The collaboration stuck, and while LCD was still temporarily retired Murphy provided music for another Baumbach film, While We're Young. His approach was different, and there was less of his own music, but some of it still lingers—like "We Used To Dance," an enigmatic and pensive instrumental synth-piece. It's a shame Murphy linked up with Baumbach for Greenberg and While We're Young, the inferior films compared to other recent Baumbach output like Frances Ha and Mistress America.

Something like "We Used To Dance" is more moving than the film warrants. On one hand, detractors of both artists could see this as a marriage of banal Brooklyn artistry, two rich middle-aged white guys flubbing with While We're Young's depiction of younger Brooklynites. But when they're both on, their dispositions link up effectively—hopefully Murphy keeps working with him, and at some point they're able to craft a masterpiece film with a masterpiece soundtrack to accompany it.

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LCD Soundsystem - "Drunk Girls" (Holy Ghost! Remix)

If Sound of Silver is what happens when a talented young director makes that one indie that catapults him to an upper echelon, then This Is Happening is when he gets the big budget to make his sprawling, two-and-a-half-hour opus. LCD's third album was all big-screen expanse, lengthy songs loaded up with a ton of lyrical and instrumental ideas. Amidst that, the jittery, frenetic "Drunk Girls" played the "North American Scum" role, a bit of levity and a feint of a lead single.

This is the remix that definitively improves upon LCD's original, albeit by rearranging the rules of the song in question. The challenge fell to DFA's own Holy Ghost!, a group whose own dance music is squiggly and fun (if not exactly overwhelming emotionally). Against what would seem necessary or logical, they turn "Drunk Girls" into a towering, heartbreaking (then heartwarming) epic that rises and falls and continuously hits you with a new passage you didn't see coming. Murphy's vocals are kept mostly intact, placed over whiplash synths and beats rather than the Velvet Underground rhythms of the original. Drama builds throughout, so that when you get to the climax it sounds as much like a plea as it does euphoria.

It bears so little resemblance to the original, but also would make total sense on This Is Happening's track list. Sometimes, it's easy to wish this was the version on the album, with Holy Ghost! locating real, gut-punch pathos in a song that otherwise comes across like a dalliance.

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