Search - Hybrid :: Hybrid Remixed

For the Hybrid completist

Johnny Myo | London, UK | 11/19/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"It was always going to be a tricky proposition: how do you remix a team whose own remixing skills are the stuff of reverential muso-bore debates?

Well, the answer seems to be, rather heavy-handedly, if this collection is anything to go by. I'm sorry to say that too many of the tracks start out with the kind of predictable, uninviting flat house beat that wouldn't be so objectionable if it weren't Hybrid we were talking about. Not quite handclaps, obviously... but you get the picture.

As a set of DJ Tools, it's a great way of bringing Hybrid to even some of the more disco-house floors - the Keenan and Anderson reworking of I Know would bring a welcome interlude to even the most full-on, happy-clappy Seamus Haji-type vibe in a club, for example. But maybe whoever wound up with Finished Symphony thought there were enough mixes of it already, because neither remix here includes more than a passing reference to the original, which I thought was a missed opportunity. OK, it's an absolute classic, so anyone who didn't throw most of it out with the bathwater might think they were on a hiding to nothing, but I thought that the right producers (John Graham? Mark Brydon?) could have lit it up the original even more.

That said, the Orb's mix of Higher Than A Skyscraper does give it a lovely, early FSOL feel, but I was disappointed that the so-called "cinematic orchestra" mix of Blackout, which fans will remember as the excellent closing track from Morning Sci-fi, meandered through, rather than using Kirsty Hawkshaw's tour-de-force vocal and taking it into an epic, "widescreen" kind of place. It sounds like Michael Nyman on the mix, more than anything, and the horn section on it is pleasant enough. However, finishing the first disc with this has the rather unfortunate effect of making you want to put on a Bjork or a David Sylvian CD rather than the second disc of this one - which I think is best treated as a "free bonus disc," as it's all very au courant twiddly electro and the like (with the exception of the excellent Sleepwalker).

Believe it or not, I do like it and it's growing on me. So check it out - don't let me put you off. But, in your heart of hearts, you know you'd probably prefer it the other way around - with most of the producers involved on this project remixed by Hybrid instead."

Some quality tracks

netwerk23 | 03/10/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a good album for Hybrid fans but it's not a good introduction to the band for new-comers. The Deadmau5 remix is a stand-out, it was tops on the Beatport charts for a while. The second disc isn't as strong as the first but there are some good grooves on there as well. Overall a good album to complete a Hybrid fan's collection."