Customer Reviews

Casino Classics - Remixes

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is NOT a typical St. Etienne disc. This is a electronic complilation, and a fine one at that. Very rarely do we see the original tracks true colors as most of these artists have opted for a more obsure version of the song they "covered". I will say for me disc 2 is much better. Starting with "Angel" and ending with "Angel", disc 2 contains many diiferent feels and many different styles. Whether is the god-like trance of Underworld's "Cool Kids Of Death", or Lionrock's "Nothing Can Stop Us", it showcases some great tunes! Other highlights includes tracks by Death In Vegas, Monkey Mafia and Primax. Disc one has some treasure as well. Chemical Brothers do their fine version of "Motorway", and Aphex Twin does his own thing to "Who Do You Think You Are". If you are a fan of Underworld I highly recommend this based on their track alone. I doubt this will ever see the light of day here in the states, so if can spare a few extra dollars, you'll come away with a nice complitaion for electronic music collection.

We Brits should be proud of having produced St Etienne, an utterly contemporary sounding group who regularly flitted up the charts in the nineties with their sure footed pop sensibilities and Sarah Cracknell's languid vocals. They could effortlessly draw from the music of previous decades, yet were not afraid to be avant-garde, and at the same time had one foot firmly in the dance camp.
This is evidenced here by the cutting edge remixers they commissioned for the numerous white labels and B-sides they released and some they didn't. Some of the best are gathered within these covers: The Chemical Brothers, Secret Knowledge (Kris Needs), The Aloof (Jagz Kooner), Andrew Weatherall, The Aphex Twin, David Holmes, Death In Vegas, Lionrock, Underworld and Broadcast, many of them still unknown names at the time.
The highly anthologised Weatherall "mix in two halves" of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart is present and correct as is the mighty 14 minute version of Cool Kids Of Death remixed by Underworld and the famous Trouser Assassin mix of Pale Movie.
Disc 1 begins and ends with versions of Like A Motorway, while Disc 2 bookends versions of a new song called Angel and features several other new songs and mixes, including the best track of all, a Monkey Mafia reworking of a 1991 B-side called Filthy, featuring the vocals of Q-Tee and a sample of Tone-Loc's Wild Thing

The music on this remix album is pretty inconsistent in terms of style. Fortunately, the quality is high throughout most of the CD.

Like most listeners, I didn't really think much of the Like A Motorway remixes. My favorite tracks, though, were He's On The Phone (I hadn't heard the original of this one, so it was a great surprise), and the remix of Filthy. The Filthy remix is much different from anything else on the album - its roots are in big beat techno as opposed to Abba-type pop. It totally rocks! However, I guess the big beat style is at odds with many Saint Etienne's fans tastes. Oh well.

If you are a Saint Etienne fan, however, I'm sure you'll find at least half of the material is worthwhile. The remixes are well selected, and rarely induce listener boredom.

First, let me state unequivocably that this is a really good CD. There are some aspects of it though that I don't like. First, as an avid St. Etienne fan I already own discs that have many of the better remixes on here. Second, many of the other remixes are too dissimilar to the original songs for my taste and they don't stand well on their own. Also, there are better remixes of many of the songs on this CD available on other discs. However, there are some definite highlights in this collection that made it worth it. As the previous reviewer mentioned, the remix of Pale Movie on Disc 1 is simply stunning and an enormous enhancement of the original album version. On disc 2, the first remix of Angel (funny that they've never released a non-remixed version of this song) is another stunner, very dancable techno-ish piece. Sarah Cracknell's voice can be a wonderous thing, and to hear her angelicly (no punn intended) cooing "Angel....nobody ever stopped to wonder why" over and over is terrific. Two other highlights on disc 2 are remixes of Burnt Out Car and The Sea, both of which have also never made it onto CD or vinyl in their original form. Burnt Out Car, in particular is a great piece.

The first CD in this set is unreal. Starting with a Chemical Brothers remix of "Like a Motorway" and ending with a David Holmes remix of "Like a Motorway" that are not only completely indistinguishable from each other but barely reminiscent of the source material, we pass through some of the prettiest techno/dance tracks I have ever heard, along with a bit of Aphex Twin (on a melodic day). The second album has the occasional serious screw-up ("Filthy", "People Get Real"), but gradually gets back into gear with some D&B / ambient stuff like "The Sea" (which, somehow, sounds like soaring over an emerald, archipelago-littered ocean) and then falls head-first into more genius disco-fests.

The 10-minute opus "Pale Movie" remix by Kris Needs, however, is pure brilliance; a perfect amalgam of looping, soft violins, trancey electronic warbling, pounding beats, and Sarah Cracknell's vision of a "moody" boy and a "sunshine" girl, their bed, dreams like a movie, whispered in the sweet antithesis of the archetypal house diva. A random, tossed-in soap opera sample -- "There've been times in my life when I've been up, and I've been down" -- turns the whole mix into a veritable anthem for everything on God's good earth. Daaaaaamn.

This was the first St. Etienne album I heard, and honestly, after listening to the best of these tracks for a week, hearing the original LPs was quite a letdown. They're pretty and all, but my youthful thirst for continuous, fat beats brings me back to the "Classics". I don't mean to be disparaging towards the group at all, though -- there's clearly something about their music that inspires the clever artists showcased here to construct tracks that deeply, deeply outclass most of the dance music I get exposed to...

This is Saint Etienne under a full moon, transformed into something wild and strange. This is a double CD of remixed craziness, turning classic Et tunes into 10 minute bits of insanity. This is techno madness, this is colder-than-ice dub, this is Sarah Cracknell digitally crooning from an alternate universe. This is a great album.

This CD set takes a whole bunch of DJs, Producers and Saint Etienne songs and reworks it all into a cool mixture of styles from Euro-Trash dance mix to way-out there Aphex Twin space walks.

These are truly new tracks - some minimally based on the original tune (a single phrase from Sarah might be heard) some more so, but none seem to be just the original track with a beat added.

If this is the only St. Etienne CD your collection is missing, you better get it!

If you're an electronica fan, you might like this one. Electronica's subtleties escape me, and you should take this review as being from a non-fan of electronica.

If you're a St. Etienne completist, it might be worth a buy.

If you're a St. Etienne fan (like I am), I'd skip this record. The arrangements never go anywhere and they sap all of the vitality and quirkiness from the original songs. I kept listening to both discs in hopes that one of the mixers appeared to be a St. Etienne fan out to have some fun and to entertain the listener, but it didn't happen. If it takes longer than 6 minutes to do a remix, somebody at the record label has given you too much space in a compilation and you couldn't do anything with the song if given 6 hours if you couldn't do it in 6 minutes. The sweet coy songs of St. Etienne sound bloated, endlessly repetitive and sterile here, and not worth a second listen. This one went straight to the CD drawer.

Saint Etienne has always been receptive to electronic music, and their openness has served them quite well. CASINO CLASSICS, a collection of remixes, shows how forward-thinking they've been since the beginning of their career. While several mixes (Secret Knowledge, David Holmes, Underworld) are aimed squarely for the progressive house dancefloor -- an indication more of when this album came out than of individual taste -- there are plenty of surprises. Though the first disc features mostly previously released mixes, there are still plenty of treasures. Dub fans can go to the Aloof's mix of "Speedwell" or Andrew Weatherall's epic mix of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart." The Aphex Twin is also represented in all his clanging abstract glory with his landmark remix of "Who Do You Think You Are." The second disc features mostly new mixes, and there are some doozies. The dancefloor breaks of Way Out West's take on "Angel" shows them at their peak, while dirty funk erupts from Monkey Mafia's "Filthy" and Death in Vegas' "People Get Real." But the real gems are PFM's gorgeous and atmospheric drum `n' bass on "The Sea" and Broadcast's angular version of "Angel" -- classics that hit the jackpot every time.

While all the remixes on this set are worthy, it's a definite buy solely for "Burnt Out Car", which is the greatest lost pop record I've yet heard. Even if that doesn't tickle your fancy there's plenty more here to amuse. A nice record (in all senses).