Red Snapper have recently signed to Lo and this album is a collection of remixes from a rather diverse group of artists, including some from the Lo Recordings roster.

After a rather pedestrian start with Broadway Project doing formulaic trip-hop on their remix of ‘he Quiet One’, the album gets more interesting with Depth Charge’s accordion-flavoured take on ‘Regrettable’. This features some accomplished scratching and DC’s trademark schizophrenic breaks sound.

Radioactive Man’s remix of ‘Four Dead Monks’ is easily the best track and regrettably leaves the rest of the album in the shade. Keith Tenniswood takes a metallic melody and creates stunning harmonies with a familiar skippy bassline coming over like ‘Airlock’ Part 2.

This is followed by 2-Step breaks-fest courtesy of Rich Thair’s remix of ‘Ultraviolet’. After a peaceful, glitchy start he adds some complex percussion and a heavy break.

Unfortunately nothing else really seems to achieve what has come before it. Blue State’s remix of ‘Regrettable’ is uninspiring atmospheric funk. Europa 51’s mix of ‘Dripro’ s quaint and exotic. Knowledge Of Bugs take on ‘The Quiet One’ is indeed quiet and experimental, using bells and guitar to create an ethnic flavour.

But after these appear two more exciting mixes which don’t just rely on exotic atmosphere. The Creation’s mix of ‘Heavy Petting’ starts off as a beautiful, beatless creation with luscious strings giving the whole thing great momentum until it morphs into a very impressive minimal house/breakbeat number.

Even better than that though is Pedro’s take on ‘Mountains and Valleys’ which is an absolute stunner. Taking the ‘micro-sampling’ theories of Akufen and applying them to a 2-step garage riddim, this mix is proof that Pedro is a rising star in the acoustic/electronic field.

A mixed bag then: Inspiring at the beginning and end but it loses momentum in the middle with too many pseudo-atmospheric mixes.

By Dan.

www.lorecordings.com