SUPER FURRY ANIMALS
Phantom Phorce
Beggars Banquet
· Reinventing the remix.
Remember books on tape? Well, for those of you who wish you could listen to a Mojo magazine interview instead of read one, Phantom Phorce may be just what you’re looking for. This remix album is a reflective look at the Super Furry Animals’ 2003 release Phantom Power, a record that has been critiqued in the press as being the band’s most forced and deflated work. Phantom Power’s executive producer Kurt Stern narrates the remixed version, giving a behind-the-scenes look at the problems with recording the album.
This limited edition two-disc set (only 500 were printed for release in Canada) is an impressive piece of marketing and includes the bonus EP Slow Life, containing three unreleased studio tracks. From the floppy disc CD sleeves to the interactive cover (which folds out to make a three-dimensional model of an old arcade game), this album takes the remix genre and turns it into a work of art. The record contains 15 remixes by such artists as Four Tet, High Llamas, Killa Kela and Mario Caldato Jr., who add their own distinctive styles to the original songs (the best of the bunch are Killa Kela’s glitchy rendition of "Golden Retriever" and Four Tet’s deconstructed version of "The Piccolo Snare"). All gimmicks aside, this is not only a good record, worthy of a second listen, but an original way to sell the same album twice.
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