by: Sean Boy
Let's get one thing clear from the get-go. This album is easily one of the best remix projects in recent memory. Phil Ranelin: Remixes schools you in then via now. Using obscure jazz tracks as source material (and the source material is obscure only because the glut of pop trash being shoved down the masses throats) contemporary producers rework the tracks for their contemporary audience, thus unveiling the obscure, converting others to the source: Phil Ranelin. Ranelin is an innovative jazz trombonist who's been a session player for Motown and played with the likes of Thelonius Monk, Pharaoh Sanders, Stevie Wonder and The Temptations. Six songs are covered in 10 tracks: four songs are remixed twice and one of the pleasures of this album is hearing different takes of the same song. Consider Morgan Geist's translation of "Sounds From The Village" versus that of Jan Jelinek for instance. The former fashions electronic throbs and flutters around a brief Ranelin bass loop and a few piano flourishes while the latter lets the original track shine through underneath his own drum machine magic. Theoretically these ten artists could come up with ten completely different versions of the same song, but that's another project in itself. John Hughes, aka Slicker one of the remixers and owner of Hefty Records should be commended for corralling the artists for this particular album as well as re-issuing Phil Ranelin's two solo albums from the '70s.
Share
|
|
