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Pieces in a Modern Style William Orbit Wea/Warner, 2000
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Tracks Reviewed by Ian Grey 
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When someone as obscenely successful as William Orbit (producer/remixer for Prince, Madonna, Sting, Peter Gabriel; dance hitmeister with Bass-O-Matic and Strange Cargo) announces that his next project will be nothing less than a genre-busting remix of famed classical perennials, it's only human to secretly hope he's hoisted by the pricey petards of his possibly blind ambition. But no such luck for the curmudgeonly: Pieces in a Modern Style is just more proof that Orbit not only deserves his rep, but that the master knob-twirler is also an instinctively savvy musician. Perversely, Pieces opens with Orbit's sole miscalculation, provided here by the first of three mixes of Samuel Barber's notoriously lachrymose "Adagio for Strings" (a.k.a. "Willem Dafoe's Death Theme" from Platoon"). But once past this ersatz Vangelis-ism, Orbit has an inventive field-day romping through the wildly dissimilar likes of Cage, Gorecki and Vivaldi, treating their august works with as mere grist for the remix mill. Orbit dumps the Great Work into his Mac, transposes them to synths and fucks massively with them: Counter melodies are ducked, themes digitally processed or reconfigured into often unrecognizable, but always lush, shapes. The few beats on disc one are mood-accentuating pulses. The highlights are many and reward close scrutiny. His mix of Beethoven's "Triple Concerto" alone shows considerable pluck: A snippet of vibrating surf guitar, some horror-film storm noises and then Ludwig Van's luscious main theme slithers in on a bed of glassy string-things which Orbit multi-tap-delays into an indistinguishably gorgeous wash. Meanwhile, he saps the saccharine content of Ravel's "Pavanne pour une Infante Defune" by playing the kitsch to the max. A Wendy Carlos bleep-patch goofs on the famed arpeggio, Spanish guitars substitute for orchestra, while deep-dub filters bring everything to a gurgling halt. A pause, and then, like a deranged music box, it starts again. Who ever thought Ravel could be funny? Fortunately, the two full-blown dance versions of that infernal Barber theme -- one Euro-tech, the other generic house -- appear on disc two. Leave that in its jewel box and you still have one disc's worth of ambient swank of the highest order. | March 2000 Ian Grey's work has been published in Time Out, Icon, Fangoria and many other periodicals. 1998 saw the publication of his book, Sex, Stupidity and Greed: Inside the American Movie Industry (JunoBooks). He is currently at work on an epic novel dealing with sex, pop music, family and mass murder, based on two lines from a mediocre Depeche Mode song. Mr. Grey likes to think that he will be among the very first to do this. |
The highlights are many and reward close scrutiny. His mix of Beethoven's "Triple Concerto" alone shows considerable pluck: A snippet of vibrating surf guitar, some horror-film storm noises and then Ludwig Van's luscious main theme slithers in on a bed of glassy string-things which Orbit multi-tap-delays into an indistinguishably gorgeous wash. |
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