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Altz Meets Roland P. Young, "Escape: The Reconstruction of Isoophonic Boogie Woogie"
It's rare for a remix to match an original, but then this isn't your standard remix. The setup being as it is, with Altz remixing the entirety of Roland P. Young's free/spiritual jazz classic "Isophonic Boogie Woogie," this is a more intimate affair, less based on creating new beats to old material than it is with providing an entirely new and updated look at an old classic. This is dangerous territory, but Altz is wise enough to let the original material take the fore. Sometimes this leaves a nagging desire for the original, but it does remain an interesting listen that reveals elements of the original not necessarily viewed so easily.
Likely the most notable change in the way the album is restructured isn't so much in the source material, which serves as the carrot and leads Altz on the entire journey throughout, but in the incessant beats that run through the album, turning it into a grooving trance-like album with horn lines and jazz percussion steering the melodic content. "Crystaliquid Sky" begins with the tinkling of thumb piano, looping itself over clattering bells before absorbing into its fold a driving beat that will drive the remainder of the track, slipping in and out and carrying the work out of the studio and into the streets, reconfiguring an oddly metered bass clarinet line into an abstracted New Orleans swing line before diving into free sax skronk and canvases of rhythm.
Usually this sort of thing has limited appeal, laying the one trick—in this case, a beat—over the existing stuff but Altz has a way of keeping it interesting throughout, never just layering his material on top but turning Young's work inside-out and finding beats within the items already present. "Magenta Loops" takes an alarmingly Kenny G-esque sax solo and lays a bass heavy jungle groove beneath, giving it a light and spaced out euphoria. "Velvet Dreamin'" opens with treatings of the bass clarinet and rolling drums, staying as abstracted as the original without losing the feel of Altz's previous work on the album, taking on a loungey distortion for most of its length.
The least dance floor-worthy track is in the brief "Fly Times," but rather than disrupt the flow of the disc it actually serves as a welcome respite, finding languid horn lines and fluttering sax writhing beneath a thick electronic haze, a kind of cleansing of the palette before "Stillness (D'n'B Version)," a work done in conjunction with DJ Kensei lays on sci-fi feel on thick, representing the most electronically based piece here and one fairly well removed from the roots of the original. Still, the material makes its way in, but not in the same careful balance displayed on the rest of the disc.
The closing "Funks" also draws on a futuristically tilted beat, but it is better able to engrain Young's work in, giving it a richness. The moments where Altz takes over with his own material are somewhat weak, displaying a lack of direction, but the balance is better weighted than on the previous track. The track actually serves as a fine microcosm of the album as a whole, at its best representing the potential of blending such disparate stylistic elements and at its worst revealing the potential pitfalls of one artist working with another's material. When proper admiration of the material is given, it turns into a convening of minds; when it isn't it turns into a hacking up of something for seemingly egoistic means. Altz typically does a fine job of showing his love for Young's original, and it is those frequent moments that make the album an exciting alternative take.
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