Eccodek

The only way you lose with a remix album is to have no taste or untalented friends. Having rounded up Jef Stott, Transglobal Underground, Adham Shaikh and Dubmatix, among others, Remixtasy adds welcome new twists to a journey begun three albums ago. About half the mixes tend towards dreamy big beats, though each is sufficiently different in tone and rhythm deployment not to become monotonous. The more idiosyncratic mixes typically set a remix project apart from the ranks of the merely warmed over. Here, those winners include Sharmaji's abstract bass tactics on "Weightless Place," Syriana's convincingly tripped-out version of "Words With the Griot" and Eccodek, who sounds rhythmically renewed on his mixes, free from the confines of a band to translate a minimal rhythm like "Bizuru Dub" into a maximum dub excursion. You'll definitely find a few head expanding mixes, with nothing taking away from the momentum.