Sally Shapiro's excellent 2013 album Somewhere Else gets the full remix treatment on
Elsewhere. Featuring a lineup of fellow Swedes (Dan Lissvick,
the Tough Alliance's Henning Fürst,) Paper Bag labelmates (
Young Galaxy), as well as top line artists (
Nite Jewel,
Little Boots) and producers (
Lovelock), the album works as a companion piece, and also as a showcase for some really good producers and remixers. Top honors go to
the Field's elongated, slowed down destruction of "Lives Together," Fürst's bubbly, filter house take on "Starman,"
Lovelock's ultra smooth, soft house version of "I Dream with an Angel Tonight," and Lissvick's late-night, driving-on-rain-soaked-streets revamp of "If I Doesn't Rain," which features the producer inserting himself as a duet partner. Some of the lesser-known participants acquit themselves very well -- '80s obsessive
Mitch Murder takes the booming electro pop of "All My Life" and turns it into something wonkily robotic and slick and
Mauvais Cliché bumps "Architectured Love" out of '80s and into something much more hip-house '90s and fun. Really the only person who lets down the side a bit is
Nite Jewel, with her stripped-down and monotonous mix of "Sundown," which saps all the melancholy beauty out of the song in favor of a pounding beat. Aside from that slight fumble, the rest of the album does exactly what a remix album should do: it stays true to the original artist and her vision, but takes things to unexpected places and has a good time doing it. ~ Tim Sendra