Dust - Remix

The original Dust album didn’t really do it for me but this remix package is great. The Flying Fish and Palm Skin remixes are particularly good, but it’s the Fragile State remix of Picture Of My Heart which does it for me. They turn the original into a gorgeous downtempo track with the vocals and orchestral sounds working perfectly together. It is a pity about the Roots Manuva remix which I have to agree isn’t great.

It took a while for Dust’s eponymous debut album to take a hold of me, but when it did, it clung like a rattlesnake with lockjaw. The combination of downtempo rhythms and neo-country western cinematics seemed perfectly suited to Adam Phillips’ drawling delivery. There’s a dreamy quality to the album, as if you’re listening to it surrounded by tumbleweeds and dust devils. “High” makes you just that; “Stay By My Side” will give you a dose of the blues. The twang of “Picture of My Heart” makes you wonder why all country music can’t be this good; “Dead Cowboys” revels in the country doldrums. But the remix album takes the originals to higher levels. While I’m not a big fan of Roots Manuva running rampant over “Where You Wanna Be,” Agent K and Flying Fish bring some broken beats and breaks to the proceedings. But it’s not until the gorgeously disquieting, semi-abstract Palm Skin remix of “Be Mindful” that it rockets into the stratosphere. Fragile State stays true to “Picture of My Heart” but catches a different angle of the same shot. And Jimpster’s remix of “Stay By My Side” will make you sigh with a heavy heart. An outstanding collection here.