Various Artists - Live Beyond Mars - Bowie Covered
Rapster/Inertia
By Andrew P Street
Tribute records are, by and large, a pretty dodgy proposition - and the fact that these (generally) unknown acts are picking (generally) unfamiliar Bowie tracks doesn't bode especially well. However, concerns should be alleviated somewhat since this disc is courtesy of Rapster, the folks behind superior tributes to Radiohead (2006's Exit Music) and Prince (last year's Controversy), and now they turn their attention to The Thin White Duke. And the results, thankfully, are pretty damn brilliant.
Au Revoir Simone start things out on a superb note with a subdued, gentle take of ‘Oh! You Pretty Things', Drew Brown turns in a beautiful acoustic version of ‘Sweet Thing', The Thing deconstructs ‘Life On Mars?' to a drunken improv-jazz nightmare while Leo Minor answers the question "What would ‘Ashes To Ashes' sound like when covered by The Rapture?" What's particularly interesting is that several choices come from the post-Scary Monsters era (aka "the critically-reviled years"), including Labyrinth's ‘Magic Dance' (hilariously covered by Kelley Polar as a minimalist disco track, complete with amateur-dramatics framing device and lyrics delivered in Italian), Tonight's ‘Loving The Alien' (turned even more early 80s retro than the original courtesy of Heartbreak) and the relatively recent ‘Looking For Water' (sensitively reworked by Carl Craig Presents Zoos Of Berlin). Fans of Bowie, bizarre reworkings, or just delightfully entertaining music of any stripe should get their mitts on this baby. Slap that baby!