Reviews of a Verve classics remix CD, Mudhoney, Hank Williams Sr. and onelinedrawing

Various Artists Verve: Remixed

Listen closely and you'll hear a few jazz purists wretching at the mere sight of this album's title. Fuck 'em.

Verve, the vaunted jazz label, threw open its vaults to hotshot DJs and mixologists, giving them license to put a dancey spin on some of its classic recordings. The likes of Tricky, MJ Cole, King Britt, Thievery Corporation, Richard Dorfmeister and others having their way with the likes of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Dinah Washington, Shirley Horn and others. Old, mostly dead, jazz divas getting the postmodern cut-and-paste.

Cool by me.

Some of it's good, some bad. With such a diverse array of source material and programmers, Verve Remixed was bound to be hit or miss. It's also highly subject to taste. I'm not a big house fan, which puts Thievery Corporations' turn at Astrud Gilberto's Who Needs Forever? in a bad spot. Same with Mark de Clive-Lowe's uber-clubby take on Horn's Return to Paradise. Masters at Work's run at Simone's See-Line Woman is a little too perky for these ears, with the flute laid on too thick.

The better remixes in the collection are the ones that tend to be lush and, well, jazzy. Joe Claussell sticks close to the spirit of Simone's Feelin' Good, outfitting it with horn flourishes, lots of electric piano and a punchy, mid-tempo groove. De-Phazz puts an undulating nu-soul/hip-hop track beneath Fitzgerald's sumptuous vocal on Wait Till You See Him.

Lady Day benefits from the two most daring remixes. Dzihan and Kamien drop fat bass and jittery tablas under Don't Explain. Tricky goes off on Strange Fruit, building a brittle blend of taut acoustic bass, horn swells and burps of metal guitar beneath Holiday's death's-door croak. Spooky.

Meanwhile, the label has released a companion CD, Verve Unmixed, featuring the original versions of the songs. I don't have a copy, but guess what? It's better. (Verve, check out ververemixed.com)
—Eric Snider

Mudhoney Since We've Become Translucent

Hey, listen to this! It's like a Mudhoney album, only slower! And trippier! And, largely, boring-er. The dirty post-acid comedown fuzz and skronky horns of the eight-minute opener Baby, Can You Dig the Light promise endless muscular throb, and Translucent delivers. Too much, it turns out, as a dangerously large portion of the disc is a blur of wah-drenched, mid-tempo dirty soul freakout. Only Dyin' for It and Inside Job (featuring Wayne Kramer on bass) approach the band's classic furious bravado; they're also the only tunes to break out of the muddy rut and gallop for a bit. The long closing bookend Sonic Infusion mirrors the first track's psychedelic indulgence, to close out an album with a strong beginning, middle and end. The parts in between aren't horrible, mind you — they just don't contain anything memorable enough (beyond Mark Arm's still-cutting hollered couplets, that is) to mark them as great. (Sub Pop, www.subpop.com)
—Scott Harrell

Hank Williams The Ultimate Collection

Shame on me, I guess, for not being more intimately familiar with the music of Hank Williams. I've heard a good number of his songs, and enjoyed them, but never, y'know, studied the man. And I probably never will. But I'm glad I got my hands on The Ultimate Collection, a double-disc set that includes all of his hits and standards, along with some live stuff and demos. This is probably as good a primer on ol' Hank as you're apt to find. And seeing as he's an unmitigated giant of American music, it'd fit nicely in just about anyone's collection. Culled from 1947 to 1952, these 42 songs cover the full gamut: weeperoo ballads, earthy honky-tonk, sprite two-steps, waltzes, country-blues, Western swing. Williams was a gifted storyteller who crafted plainspoken paeans to the human condition and sang them in a twangy, everyman tenor. The Ultimate Collection has its occasional cornpone moments, but by and large this is heavy music that resonates with authentic emotion. (Mercury/UTV)
—Eric Snider

onelinedrawing Visitor

After posthardcore scene-starters Far dissolved, songwriter/vocalist Jonah Matranga went home and turned his eclectic home-recording solo project into an enviable cottage industry. Two EPs, one full-length fronting New End Original, a collaboration with Rival Schools, and countless shows (from house parties to sold-out theater bills) later comes Visitor, courtesy of Jade Tree Records. You can't help but wonder how much material didn't end up on the disc — one-man operations tend to harbor at least some stuff that's a trifle self-indulgent and/or incomplete, but everything here is sweet, compelling and eminently listenable. The first 11 tracks are all standouts, from the moody opener um …, through the R2D2-inflected power-pop of Smile and briefly shining Perfect Pair to, well, the rest of 'em. Comparisons to Dashboard Confessional are, regrettably, inevitable, though onelinedrawing's creative daring, complex mood swings and raw-nerve delivery make Chris Carrabba's considerable abilities seem downright formulaic. Visitor is a small record, a faded, folded note that you carry around and read when you're alone because it still says exactly the right thing. And, in that context, it's pretty close to perfect. (Jade Tree, www.jadetree.com)
— Scott Harrell