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Album Review: V/A - Rewind! 3 (Ubiquity)
Reviewer: Oliver Scott
“Original classics, re-worked, remixed, re-edited and reworked”. Um...yes. When this concept works – as in
the cases of Verve Remixed and
Madlib’s Blue Note album – it can certainly
produce innovative results, but when it goes wrong, well, it isn’t pretty. Thankfully, the vast majority of the artists on
Rewind Three get it just right.
The extent to which the songs are tampered with on the Rewind 3 varies quite a bit, which helps. When it originally
appeared I was rather perplexed why Louie Vega had bothered re-rubbing Chackachas’ Jungle Fever (which opens this
album) as he’d done so little with it. But as the saying goes, you can’t keep a good tune down. But properly taking a
liberty or two, This Kid Named Miles’ reggae treatment of the late Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire is a bit of a mess,
but rather charming for it. Damon Aaron’s take on Gil Scott Heron’s Willing brings the original straight up to
date, and he's feeling it - you can just tell.
Antibalas’ afrobeat take on Willie Colon’s Che Che Cole is good fun. And though I had it down as rather 'Koop by
numbers' to start with, Elsa Hedberg’s (Swell Sessions) Open Your Eyes, originally by
Betty Carter, is growing on me every single day. Talking of Koop, Paolo Fedreghini’s version of Sahib Shihab’s Please
Don’t Leave is also cut from the same cloth, though puzzlingly enough, I can’t see how it relates to the original in the
slightest.
Gilles Peterson has been caning Spiritual South of late, and their cover of German cheesemeister Peter Thomas’s Stars and
Rockets works pretty hard for me, with phat drums and jazzy cymbals a go go. Straight out of N16, the
Spaceboys/Zinger/Etienne clearly see the original as holy writ, and their take on Sun Ra’s Space is the Place is
quite a treat. P’Taah’s edit of Lorez Alexander’s Baltimore Oriel is done in a bracing broken beat fashion.
Ayro’s like-for-like version of Herbie Hancock’s Chamelon is either
audacious or properly entertaining. And Bing Hi Ling’s soulful cover of AC/DC’s All Night Long literally beggars
belief.
So all in all, a well put together, interesting, and amusing compilation from Ubiquity, and one that both stands up to repeated
listening, sending you back to the originals with fresh ears. I think it will win a lot of friends and hope it does really
well.
RELATED LINKS:
Ubiquity
Buy Rewind! 3 at Amazon
US
RELEASE DATE: Tuesday 20 January 2004 (UK/US)
PUBLISHED: Sunday 14 December 2003
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::: RELATED LINKS
Ubiquity
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