Reviews Search

Pedro, "Fear & Resilience"

Witha list of remixers like Prefuse 73, Four Tet, and Danger Mouse as theprinciple selling point, I expected this single from Pedro to beindulgent or repetitive, but thankfully it is neither.


Melodic

Okay, so the 21+ minute remix by Four Tet is a little indulgent asit sounds like an entirely separate piece of music from the Pedrooriginal, but even that opus works well alongside the rest of thiscollection of slightly folky, slightly funky takes on "Fear &Resilience." Danger Mouse turns in the most commercially approachableversion by jazzing the Pedro original up with some rare groove samplesthat wouldn't sound out of place on a Tribe Called Quest record.Prefuse 73 cuts and splices fragments of the original with his typicalcollage of riffs and hip hop detritus to produce something post-modernenough to keep it from sounding like a retread. Pedro's own versionanchors the disc and proves perhaps the most adventurous in its rangeof sound, while the Home Skillet mix deconstructs the source intoshimmering digital noise and wavering synths. Though the remixers heretook entirely predictable routes, all of the mixes are handled withenough love and attention to quality that the disc works as a wholecollection and not just as a single theme repeated a few too manytimes. It's certainly gotten me interested in checking out more fromPedro, which is what an endeavor like this is intended to do, so toPedro and Melodic I have to say: "mission accomplished."

samples: