Oceanic Remixes Volume II

And I got this relatively cheap, too! I'm pretty happy with it really; seeing as this is easily the best remixes Vol. Sure, DJ Speedranch's contribution isn't terribly amazing but you have Hecker's excellent Carry remix and that absolute beast by Broadrick; two of the best Isis songs in general, really.

Hecker gets Carry and turns it into one of his songs. It's all very processed, noisy and glitchy, but also rather beautiful, damaged guitar tones soaring all over the places before falling back into the mire of distortion and clipping. This guy has always surprised me with just how organic he sounds, even though it's anything but. A typically quality bit of ambient from Hecker; I think he's the best in the genre right now.

I guess it's not really Speedranch's fault that he's sandwiched between two of the best dudes in the business, but man does his remix come off as shoddy compared to the other two on here. He noises it up, I assume he throws in some JT here and there (thus the title). A lot more is taken away form the original track (Carry) then is added, that's for sure.

Enter: broadrick. Already established as one of the best in the remixing business- being the go-to man for the metal world for much of the 90's and killing it with a previous Isis remix. He picked the best song on Oceanic and while he didn't make it better he did make it into a completely new song which is of a very high quality. I often use the term "soaring" but honestly that's the only way to describe the vocals in this; massive echo, delay, 10 tracks going on all at once, doing these full throated vocal drones over some massive industrial pummel. Things take a more pleasant ambient meander later on but it's not all that anticlimatic or anything; by then you're already riffed out by the huge intro and main part. Fantastic.

Overall, if you're in that no mans lands between "obsessive collector" and "big fan" then this is probably the remixes LP that's worth tracking down. Hecker and Broadrick; honestly, how could this not fail? More casual fans should seek the double CD instead, though.