Blog

After last Friday's review of the relatively disappointing Merry Mixmas collection, I'm glad to have a much better collection of new Christmas remixes to recommend.

As with the other collection, the emphasis here is on fun, with lots of kids' songs. This disc doesn't start off with its strongest material - in fact the first two songs are definitely sub-standard in comparison to the rest - so at first I was worried that both Christmas remix discs had been a waste of money! However, it quickly gets better with John Beltran remixing Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald, followed by King Kooba mixing Charlie Parker.

Other great remixes are contributed by Kaskade, Future Loop Foundation and Ohmega Watts, among others. As you can guess, the original artists are very similar to the other collection, with 1940's jazz stars, but also some symphonic material. Stylistically, it's also quite similar, sticking mostly to the chill out formula of trip hop and downtempo breaks.

The major difference here is the overall quality is higher, perhaps because the producers take more chances! Red Baron's remix of The Berlin Symphony Orchestra's version of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies is an inspired riot.

Four stars. Definitely this year's better Christmas remix package.