When a rock band releases a remix album, it’s often treated like an afterthought, with execs enlisting high-profile dance producers to slap new beats onto old singles and promoting them to club audiences who wouldn’t typically buy rock albums. This has never been the case for The Cure’s remix albums. Ever since their first—1990’s <i>Mixed Up</i>, which yielded the Balearic classic “Lullaby (Extended Mix)”—the band’s singer and principal songwriter, Robert Smith, has had a close hand in the process, doing many of the mixes himself. The tracks rarely veer into proper club-music territory. Instead, certain motifs are teased out and built upon, and are occasionally augmented with new instruments or lengthened for more languid DJ sets.
The band’s third remix album generally hews to that ethos. Even a towering name like Paul Oakenfold (who previously remixed “Close to Me” on <i>Mixed Up</i>) treats “I Can Never Say Goodbye” with a light touch, delicately accentuating its majestic vibe, while Orbital gives the downcast “Endsong” just a dab of industrial grit. Daniel Avery seems to even tone down the aggressive guitars and drums of “Drone:Nodrone” for his slightly more propulsive version.
There is, of course, a lot of variation across these 24 remixes (each of <i>Mixes of a Lost World</i>’s eight tracks gets three), and it comes most notably in the form of more traditional dance remixes. But rather than seeming like a crass attempt to gain favor in other musical spheres, Smith’s list of respected electronic music producers here indicates just how deeply his tastes run. Germans Anja Schneider, Gregor Thresher, and Âme manage to turn Smith’s tunes into restrained and elegant techno and house cuts, while Four Tet gives “Alone" some of his signature garage-y shuffle.
