Road To Western Lands

This generous remix album delivers five versions of "The Western Land" and two of the title tracks from Material's Seven Souls album, which was originally released on the Virgin label in 1989 and was reissued by Triloka in 1997. (Tracks one and seven are duplicated on the full album.) All of the remixes are radical departures from the album tracks on which they're based, and you might never guess that all the "Western Land" mixes are based on the same original version if it wasn't for the wisps of William Burroughs' laconic spoken-word vocals fluttering in and out of all of them. There are lots of big names here, including Talvin Singh (who weighs in with an attractively funky, if unexciting, selection), DJ Olive and DJ Soul Slinger (who gets more radical with the source material, messes around more with Burroughs' voice and creates extremely intricate rhythms, to compelling effect). Spring Heel Jack take a sort of ambient approach, with frankly boring results. But Bill Laswell's ten-minute excursion on "Seven Souls" is a revelation. Recommended with minor reservations. ~ Rick Anderson|