Soulwax

Last year’s Any Minute Now proved a universal disappointment for those hotly anticipating Soulwax’s follow-up to 1999’s lauded Much Against Everyone’s Advice. Pushing a heavier rock direction than most desired, largely due to the production work of Flood, the team behind mash-up dance sensations 2 Many DJs only managed to put forth a few excellent moments amongst a number of inferior ones. It’s nice to know that the Dewaele brothers — Stephen and David — do take notes though, because Nite Versions is essentially the album fans of 2 Many DJs want. Falling more in line with the dance floor-owning Radio Soulwax bootlegs, this remix album translates a good chunk of Any Minute Now into the kind of acid/disco/electro rock that has been linked to the band as of late. Opening with a disparate, full-on rock rendition of Daft Punk’s "Teachers,” the band turn the new wave "Miserable Girl” into a muscular, oscillating dance machine, while subtly but effectively rewiring the awesome "E Talking” with a perfectly monotone female vocal. The industrial edge of "KracK” is shaped into a perfect drop of acid, while "Compute” goes from tame to savage in its transformation. Most fun of all though is the "Funkytown” sample that drives "NY Excuse,” reinvented neatly as "NY Lipps.” Here, LCD Soundsystem’s Nancy Whang and James Murphy holler their way into a nicely segued second remix of the song ("Another Excuse”), which is unsurprisingly and perfectly mixed by Murphy’s DFA crew. Remix album of the year, easily, but is there really any competition?