Various

Following up on the strong first volume of Blood and Fire mix-ups comes another round of shooting fish in a barrel. As a label, Blood and Fire has so much flavour you'd have to be seriously unfunky not to come up with a good remix. Just take some samples and the remix writes itself - anyone with a $500 sampler could have created Mr. Scruff's Glen Brown remix, but that makes it no less enjoyable. These 15 remixes interpret their mid-'70s sources with rhythm templates ranging from hip-hop to drum & bass to digital rockers. The latter fare the best, as songs like Segs Jennings/Max Romeo's "Valley of Jehosophat" exaggerates the quirky and distinctive beats of the original. Apollo 440 successfully extrapolates some hip-hop out of Yabby You's "Run Come Rally." If anything, the drum & bass material sounds old, with already well-established breaks not really going anywhere. Still, with this kind of source material the consistency of the project makes the disc enjoyable throughout. It's natural for a party, even though the mood mellows by the time Horace Andy's "My Guiding Star" hits.