Got your tickets? Good, because you’re travelling on the Smoove Multi-Track Reworks Vol. 11 express…club class! Yep, another four multi-track reworks given the makeover and it might just be your best experience yet given some of the leftfield choices on this. Cars is the opener and Smoove immediately liberates the break and lets it roll for a bit before gradually building up the more immediately familiar elements of Gary Numan’s influential early 80s cut. Then he repeats the trick for the southern soul of The Allman Brothers Midnight Rider, leveraging the bass for extra boom while ditching 12-string guitars for Rhodes and Hammond. The break also returns for a new bridge upon which it is joined eventually by Gregg Allman’s voice. Of the four cuts present on this release, the third, a flip of Carly Simon’s is the most disco-fied and thus typical of the ‘sound’ of Smoove’s previous rework. Here, Smoove massively extends the Rhodes-led intro, has bits were Simon’s vocals are dubbed out and creates a bridge with a drum dropout before returning for the final triumphant section. Closing things is Searching – a Luther Vandross number now sans drums and percussion – slowing things right down as vocals, Rhodes and orchestral strings take it away for that end of the night feel.
(Out now on Multitrack Reworks US)
