PAUL SIMON

Graceland – The Remixes Despite a failure to keep the required anti-apartheid distance, ‘Graceland’ did its part in bringing South African music and musicians into mainstream public view. The remix artists old and new here will fail to achieve anything similar, with those core sounds and rhythms stripped away and replaced for the most part by interminably dull and thumpy electronica in minor keys that jar against the major structures of the originals. Groove Armada delivers a mind-numbingly pointless You Can Call Me Al; the magnificent rolling slap bass of The Boy in The Bubble is ditched for a strict 4/4 synth replacement on Richy Ahmed’s appalling eight-and-a-half minute ‘remix’. Paul Oakenfold does best, updating rather than deconstructing Crazy Love Vol II, and Homeless also proceeds hopefully, but then fades inexplicably after a single minute! Sheesh, it’s a relief when it’s over.