Banco De Gaia - Heliopolis (The City Of The Sun Mixes)

This release demonstrates how a remix really should be in my view: a different slant, taking nothing away from the original and retaining enough so as to still be recognizable. It should be an enhancement rather than a non-descript reworking stripped of its original luster.
Here we have three top quality remixes by the people who know the music of Banco best; Toby Marks and his co-collaborators at Planet Dog.
The first: the Eedupolis Dog Mix is a techno/ trance affair. The second: the Liquid Light Mix is more acid/ techno and the Redwood mix: the third; is a slightly less textured version of the original album mix which props up the release.
Track one begins with dramatic drums, cascading synths and handclaps reminiscent of Pressure of Speech, before heading into trance territory. The original melody and vocal combines beautifully with the progressive nature of the piece to create a myriad of hypnotic soundscapes. Masterful.
Track two kicks in almost immediately; subtle ambience releases the acidic techno rhythm.Later it becomes a tad trancier but still maintains the acid feel with plenty of alien murmurings a la Eat Static. The misty background atmospherics complete the Martian picture. Superb.
Track three is basically a rearrangement of the original tune with a bit more focus on the rhythm section- another storming rendition though.
Perhaps this release would be more effective as a whole if the Redwood and Original Album mixes were placed between the other two rather than together, being fairly similar, but still you can’t take anything away from the excellence of the tunes themselves