Everybody
Hertz
shows just how difficult putting a remix album together
is. While Moon Safari captured the imagination
of millions and reached a much wider audience than electronic
records usually do, the follow up, 10,000
Hertz Legend, although reinforcing the band
as a major force, failed to attract quite as many people.
Air now come back with an incidental collection of disparate
remixes.
For this
project, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunkel
have asked a handful of artists to reshape tracks from
10,000
Hertz Legend in their own style. If the legendary
On-U-Sound producer Adrian Sherwood or Modjo present
impeccable versions of How Does It Make You Feel?
and People In The City respectively, adapting
their universe to remain true to the feel of the original,
others don’t manage to pull through properly. Mr Oizo’s
and The Hacker’s reworking of Don’t Be Light
(the song appears no less than five times, none of which
come close to matching the original) is somewhat pretty
similar, as they give the track an electro twist which,
in Mr Oizo’s case, soon becomes futile and dull. The
Haker’s version, although let down by its stiff production,
demonstrates a slightly more interesting approach, taking
the chilled original to the dance floor. The best version
of the song is found in the more upbeat Malibu Remix.
The Jack Lahana remix of People In The City
or Neptune’s reworking of Don’t Be Light do
not unfortunately bring any remotely interesting new
features to the originals. Apart from the Sherwood and
Modjo remixes, the only convincing track included here,
is Air’s brand new The Way You Look Tonight,
with captures once more the more chilled and beautiful
side of the duo’s music.
Despite the
excellent quality of the original, this project in its
majority, lacks of proper direction, and is desperately
unimaginative and tedious. Everybody Hertz
is not even indispensable to ultimate Air fans, and
could well put some of them off for good. A real shame.
1/5 |
