THE DESEO REMIXES

Sometimes it happens to hear some classic destroyed by remixers, sometimes with the guilty complicity of the original authors, sometimes without. I remember to have heard sequences of Renaissance's Carpet of the Sun and also a house version of (AAARRGGGHHHH) Comfortably Numb. Such remixes have involved also the whole Dark Side Of The Moon. Hateful.

With this Deseo remixes ic could have been worse. First of all Deseo is far from being the best album released by Jon Anderson, even including his newage period, so there'was not much to destory and in some cases the originals are incredibly enhanced by the electronics.

"Deep Floresta" is better than the quite boring original. The endless repetitions are more common with electronic music and the rhythm hasn't been changed to the usual 4/4 of disco music. In addition Jon's voice is Jon's voice, so not as bad as I was expecting.

"Intercity 125" is hard to map on the original song. It's remixed on the usual boring 4/4 with a reggae bass line and I think just short sequences of the original. Nothing more than chill- out music to be consumed after a rave. Thumbs down.

Deep Forest seem to have better interpreted Jon's music. "Speed Deep" is just a piece of house music but a little bit of the original world music is still present in the background. However also this track is nothing else than chill out. Jon's voice is accelerated so to sound innatural.

"Master Mute" could even be a Jon's original. The kind of electronic pop tracks found on "In The City Of Angels". A decent one.

"Deseo Reconstruction" from Future Sound Of London is probably the only track with some prog inside. It's a pity that everybody remixes a song has to make it sound so standardized. I see this track as a missed opportunity The ethnic parts in the middle remind me to Senmuth, but the sequenced parts are too disconnected.

"Amor Real" starts electronic, without drums. That's a good thing as it's different from every other song heard on this album. Unfortunately the original was one of the few good tracks of Deseo so this version isn't half that good.

"Master Mute Instrumental Mix" is the same without Jon's vocals but the absence of vocals gives a wider range of possibilities for the arrangements. Unfortunately they are house. The rub-a-dub bass line and a violin give some flavor to the track but this is not a reason good enough to buy this album.

"Bless This" had a connection with the house music even in the original. In this case I quite prefer the remix which is surely more ambient.

So it could have been worse, but this is one of the less essential albums I have found on PA. Not so bad to deserve one single star but I have to say that my second star is like "a gift for the career". An album that is on PA only because Jon Anderson is included in the site, but neither him would have been accepted on PA on the basis of an album of this kind.