Ollopa:Apollo
After one remix album this morning, here’s another. This time, Banco de Gaia’s Apollo album gets remixed as Ollopa. This too has a pretty stellar cast of remixers, including System 7, Eat Static, Gaudi and Kaya Project. Out on 7 Oct but there’s a preview mix to listen in the meantime.
The original Apollo album was, I said, “a fine return to the dance floor” by Banco de Gaia (Toby Marks). It was quite a varied album with classic Banco de Gaia sounds mixed with some dub and breaks filtering into the tracks. This album has a great set of remixers but is slightly uneven.
It gets off to a less than stellar start with a remix from Tripswitch, which simply made me think “bank advert music”. Moving on to better things, Deep Fried Dub gives it the reggae dub effects to make Oreia have a fine bounce. Desert Dwellers also come up trumps, with a remix that takes All Sleeping into a less organic and more IDM direction. Unusual Cosmic Process turn one of the highlights of the original album – Hu! – into one of the highlights of this one, with a Hybrid-style breaks tune allied to Eastern flute exoticism. Shouldn’t work but does brilliantly well.
Kaya Project give Apollon a flamboyant tribal drummer feel and System 7 make For Such A Time into a re-tread of something from a 1990s System 7 album. Another remix that’s less than it could be (much as I like System 7’s work). Huff and Puff take Eternal Sunshine into epic ambient territory. A really good mix. Eat Static give Wimble Toot a Balkanised mix, not entirely successfully. The LP ends with Gaudi going for a rock bass underpinning to Lamentations’ eastern overtones. Another where the diversity of the mix elements work well.
Order via:
Blurb: Preview of the forthcoming Ollopa: Apollo remixed album, due out October 7 most of the world, October 8 in North America
Acquiescence (tripswitch Remix)
Oreia (deepfrieddub Remix)
All Sleeping (Desert Dwellers Remix)
Hu! (ucp remix)
Apollon (Kaya Project Remix)
For Such a Time (System 7 Remix)
Eternal Sunshine (Huff and Puff mix)
Wimble Toot (eat static Remix)
Lamentations (GAUDI Remix)
Release/catalogue number: DSCGCKDIG014
Release date: Oct 7, 2013
