Felix NEill

Possibly a unique artefact in that the Wetherall mix is shit, but look beyond that and there's some pretty good stuff here. The more electro inclined stuff emerges from the sausage machine slightly shinier and there are a couple of great remixes of "Hot On The Heels Of Love".

"Looking at the names involved, I have to admit that my first feeling was a sinking stomach, as I imagined flaccid house beats laid over songs that had originally been on the cutting edge of sound. Thankfully, and surprisingly, that turns out not to be the case. For the most part, these remixes allow the souls of the originals to show through while at the same time turning them in new directions. The Motor remix of "Persuasion" keeps the song slow and stripped-down, with a rhythm built of clicks and snare, while Hedonastik's "What a Day" strews mechanical-sounding metallics across a funkified version of the song's original beat.

"Carl Craig takes two shots here. His version of "Hot on the Heels of Love" maintains the original's feel, though the rhythm is more consistent and somewhat less interesting; the feeling of sound under pressure remains, though. His reworking of "Still Walking" is better, a dark, dank and echoey version that shows Throbbing Gristle to have been hip to trip-hop long before the genre existed.

"TG members Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti get their own licks in twice. First with a skeletal, slow "Hamburger Lady" that's eerie, like sound leaking in from another dimension; and then "HotHeelsUnited," which cleverly combines two songs into one, backed with an insistent pulsing bass beat.

Not all of the remixes work as well. Two Lone Swordsmen dissect "United" into a pulsing rhythm that keeps the vocals but loses some of the original's dark feeling of threat. And Simon Ratcliffe (of Basement Jaxx) turns the original of "Hot on the Heels of Love" into a sweetness-and-light club tune devoid of personality."

This is the CD rip, but there's a vinyl version at the ever-brilliant Ripped In Glasgow here.

320 Kbps

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