Review Summary: Smells like a mess.
Okay, let's take a recap for real now.
Andrew Huang, up until 2013, had a rather prolific career, with records put out under several pseudonyms which all focused on different musical styles. And seemingly, he did everything a musician could do. He was a passionate folk-singer, he was a raving DJ, he was a thoughtful rapper, he was an angry electronica-producer, he was a singing robot, he was it all and much, much more. And so, at the end of one of his most fruitful years, he did a last thing he didn't do before. He released a remix-album.
I asked how to review certain kinds of albums before in my reviews, but a remix-album may just be the worst kind of project you can choose to review. Mostly, these kinds of albums have absolutely no input from the main-musician itself, except for making the music that is being remixed. Most of these projects don't flow well, they are all over the place and grant absolutely no relistening-value. And yet, here I am, because I am just a giant completionist.
On this album you will find remixes from all of Andrews former career under his own name, and even some songs that even haven't been released on album yet. Also, expect some songs to pop up more often than once. And on a technical level, most of these remixes are well done.
But this gets tiring so fast, you wouldn't even believe. I don't know about you guys, but my head started hurting at around 13 minutes into this compilation. While most of these remixes, as said before, in fact are well done, they all sound the same. They all just incredibly sound the same. There is just nothing to break up the monotony of overused club synths or cheap 8-bit sounds.
But lets look at the highlights, because, well, we have to, otherwise this review would be over by now. Funny enough, the best songs on here are the remixes by Andrew himself, which are well-produced and well put together, and actually giving a new spin to the old songs, giving some nice new context. But aside from his remixes, the best work on here are simply all remixes from his „Summer“-album, which coincidentally all have high production-values, great ideas and stick in your ears for quite some time. And at last, the best remix of all, the StatueOfDiveo remix of Everything Will Be Alright gives the song a whole new dynamic, making it more enjoyable than the original version and pronouncing the chorus melody in such a way that it is even catchier than before.
But in conclusion, this compilation is only interesting if you are really, really curious as to what other versions of his original songs sound like. Because, in the end, this is an unlistenable mess of scattered ideas who work even less together than his 59-song compilation Retrospective.
It's out for free on his Bandcamp though, so I guess he seems aware of it.
