city of god remixes - various (Crippled dick hot wax)   Coming Soon

city of god: the remixes - various artists

Reviewing film music always presents a dilemma irrespective of genre. Do you listen to it before or after having seen the movie? Should the music be so arresting that it distracts the viewer from the film or should it be subsumed to its action? “City Of God Remixes” (Crippled Dick Hot Wax) avoids the dilemma by featuring 16 remixes of music featured in that critically acclaimed film about the street gangs of the favelas in Rio De Janeiro. 14 Brazilian DJs and 2 from Berlin extend the film soundtrack into a melange of jazzy, techno and ambient colours drifting into furious samba beats, capoeira or snippets of elegant, melodious choro.

The warmth of the sound and the use of the cyclical nature of beat box figures to occasionally uncover surprising relationships are interesting although the experienced world beat listener is forewarned that much of the stuff here furrows very familiar ground.

Normally heavy rockers wouldn’t get a look-in in the world-music kaleidoscope, not because there’s anything intrinsically wrong with electronics or high-level volumes unless you’re an overly sensitive ophthamologist…..hell, I spent my formative years listening to the people who started it all… Hendrix, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Frank Zappa, electric era Miles etc. Rather, the big problem with most bands of the ilk is the absence of meaningfully original technique or new ideas. The roots are stunted and there is no incentive to think outside the demographic square.