Gil Scott-Heron / Jamie xx – We’re New Here

Cynically thinking, it’s temptingly easy to dismiss this remix project as XL’s attempt to squeeze maximum life out of Gil Scott-Heron’s comeback, just in case it takes ages for the legendary – and legendarily troubled – American soul/jazz poet to craft a follow-up to last year’s excellent I’m New Here. After all, a whopping 16 years lapsed in a hail of hard drugs and harder living between 1994’s Spirits and its long overdue 2010 follow-up.

Any such doubts evaporate the moment you listen to the thing. This side of dub reggae and electronic music, remix albums hardly have the mightiest of reps. By presenting an even more impressive version of a record that was pretty great to begin with, We’re New Here might just change that. Not that this really is a remix album – a remake, or reimagining, might be a more accurate description. A long term fan, Jamie ‘xx’ Smith chops, twists and bends Scott-Heron’s vocals, before placing them in entirely new musical terrains that bear little or no resemblance to the skeletal cuts on I’m New Here – or the horizontal, minimalistic sighs of Smith’s day job in The xx.

The results are nothing short of revelatory. Strong as it is, I’m New Here’s an undeniably punishing listen, a largely spoken word account of a battered and bruised man looking back at a life that’s practically dripping with potential for back-breaking regret, the barely-there musical landscape ensuring the focus remains on the main course, Scott-Heron’s stark words. Heavily influenced by the more introspectively smoky end of Dubstep and various claustrophobic anti-party aspects of dance music, and deeply appreciative of the momentum-building potential of the empty spaces between notes, ‘We’re New Here’ puts some meat on its parent album’s bare bones, whilst managing to maintain on unblinking focus on the star of the show, Scott-Heron’s drug-ravaged yet still majestic vocal chords, the worn-out cracks of which are put into stark contrast by the solitary glimpse of Scott-Heron’s 70’s creative peak on the dreamy, soothing ‘My Cloud’.

The more you listen, the more seamlessly inspired We’re New Here becomes, the strike rate improving the further Smith treks from the originals. I’m New Here’s Bill Callahan-penned title track, folky and dry in its original incarnation, becomes a ghostly duet between Scott-Heron and a sampled Gloria Gaynor, with frequent bass drops plummeting into the deepest recesses of ribcage-rattling reverberations as the ghostly singing partners present contrasting takes on a night time encounter. The wounded resignation of Scott-Heron’s take on classic soul ballad ‘I’ll Take Care of You’ turns into a – contradictory, but supremely moving – melancholy rave, a hands in the air dancefloor-filler that’s barely holding back a stinging flood of tears. But best of all is this new take on ‘NY Is Killing Me’, the original’s almost-acapella hunger for escape transformed into a manic, dread-fuelled nocturnal dub that suggests the temptations the original’s protagonist was so keen to run away and hide from have – yet again – taken over.