Remix albums are so variable that they require more careful selection than a regular disc by your favourite band. Just as some are breathtakingly good (NIN and Isis have both released stunning remix sets), others are painfully dull (Manic Street Preachers and Blur spring to mind) with their eyes set firmly upon the purchaser’s wallet. Of course, the type of band issuing the remixes should give a hint as to the type of thing you’re going to hear, and it never seemed likely that Steven Wilson would follow up his astonishing solo album with anything half-assed.
Nsrgnts is best seen as a companion piece to Insurgents, rather than a standalone record. At six tracks, and about thirty minutes of music, it actually offers remixes of only four tracks (‘Get all you deserve’ and ‘Abandoner’ are both repeated) but the results are so individual and interesting that this is not the sticking point that it might have been. ‘Harmony Korine’ is first up in a David a.Sitek mix, and it works beautifully, taking the basics of that song and reworking it into ethereal other-worldliness with a hypnotic beat. ‘Get all you deserve’ is reworked by Dalek, who do a sterling job of deconstructing an amazing track before the engineers strip ‘Abandoner’ down to a minimal skeleton before reintroducing Wilson’s droning guitar amid a wall of harmonics.
‘Salvaging’ was one of the stand-out tracks of the original album, and Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson) keeps the tension building dynamics while adding in a stuttering industrial beat and relegating Wilson’s voice to the back of the mix. Sampled strings and discordant guitar all vie for attention and Mastelotto uses the strong source material to create a taut, tough industrial track that wouldn’t be out of place on Nine Inch Nail’s landmark ‘The Fragile’. ‘Abandoner’ returns as a Danse Macabre mix, all pulsing synth and moody noise, and manages to sound far more contemplative than the original bordering, almost, on Low’s slow-core territory, with Wilson’s voice drenched in reverb and backed by twirling piano. Finally, Fear Falls Burning offers a second remix of ‘Get all you deserve’ to close the record. A quiet take on the song, it acts as a soothing outro to this beautifully-formed EP.
While some remix albums sound jumbled, Wilson has carefully chosen the remixes so they recreate the ebb and flow of the original album. Although songs are repeated, the listener never gets a feeling of Déjà vu because the artists chosen have used the elements that work best for them to create something entirely new while maintaining the integrity of the original. While it could never eclipse the original album, this is one of the few remix EPs that can sit proudly in your record collection, rather than act as completist-only shelf filler, destined to be covered in dust from lack of use. Recommended.
