Remixes of pop songs for nightclub dance floors seem dully utilitarian as listening experiences – they’re faster and thump harder – but the trippier remix has become the American equivalent of Jamaican dub. On Impulsive!, a variety of producers take tracks released on the Impulse! jazz label and use them to create new pieces of music, and like dub, they often do it through a process of subtraction, removing parts and treating others with effects to create a new, more psychedelic thing. As is almost always the case with compilations, the results here are mixed, though they’re generally entertaining. So much of the Impulse! catalog has a trippy element before remixing, so Archie Shepp’s “Attica Blues” feels reined in by Chief X-Cel from Blackalicious, and Boozoo Bajou’s remix of Pharoah Sanders’ “Astral Traveling” loses much of the original’s ethereality. On the other hand, Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA remixes Charles Mingus’ “II B.S.” in a way that respects Mingus’ boldness while injecting a cinematic dimension that was at the root of Wu-Tang productions.

 

The most daring remix is Telefon Tel Aviv’s take on Oliver Nelson’s “Stolen Moments.” Telefon Tel-Aviv is Loyola graduates Joshua Eustis and Charles Cooper, and they have released two excellent indie electronic albums for Chicago’s Hefty Records. They add the Loyola University Chamber Orchestra to their version of “Stolen Moments,” which they also used extensively on their 2004 album, Map of What is Effortless. Rather than strip Nelson’s piece down, they composed a new, string-driven context for Nelson’s crime show soundtrack-like piece centered on the saxophone. In the end, they steal the song from Nelson and the album from other remixers, creating something more beautiful from Nelson’s blueprint, and showing more daring and creativity than the other producers.

 

Consumer note: Impulsive! is worth hearing, but if you just want to hear the Telefon Tel Aviv track, it’s available from the iTunes store. The original tracks are available on a companion CD, Impulsive! Unmixed.