Super Furry Animals - Phantom Phorce + Slow Life EP

Though randomly delayed and contained in some extremely difficult packaging in the fold out shape of a late seventies arcade game, this gem of a remix album is finally here featuring collaborations from many different labels among them Domino, Lex, and Wichita. The narration from supposed executive producer and album savior Kurt Stern gives Phantom Phorce an Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, childhood storytelling quality bringing the various mixes together and greatly enhancing the playfulness and fun of the album. Most of the political messages of the original have been lost but it is more adventurous musically. Some songs contain close to nothing of the original [Massimo’s “Venus And Serena,” Zan Lyon’s electro-grunged “Out Of Control,”] and some are possibly better than their sources [Boom Bip’s dark groove infused “Father Father” and Four Tet’s eclecticized “Piccolo Snare”]. Of course there’s bound to be a few tracks which may have been better left in the studio [Mario Caldato Jr.’s corny take on “Liberty Belle” and Brave Captain’s eighties sitcom theme come Aphex Twin trashing of “Bleed Forever”] but the oddly assembled stories from Stern including wombats, HP sauce, and wounded techies more than makes up for them. As a stand alone disk this is fairly questionable but it is a great companion to the true Power.