LOVE

Instead of other live performers, what if the original tracks are newly remixed for the story? You certainly would have a deconstruction of the "jukebox" part! This is the case with Love, the Cirque de Soleil presentation of the music of the Beatles.

Even the concept of a remix album has been reinterpreted here too. Mashups and digs through alternate mixes from the band's Anthology abound. This itself is significant, as remix albums can be a crapshoot. For every notable Lee "Scratch" Perry dub collection, there are at least several that can be each characterized, as was in a review in the former Island Ear of Billy Idol's Vital Idol, "a textbook case in studio self-indulgence." Rather, Love is a showcase for sound combinations that are pleasant and intriguing.

Some tracks are mashups with samples of songs interpolated into others. Sound effects of horse whinnies are borrowed from "Good Morning, Good Morning" to give voice, so to speak, to Henry the Horse in "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite." (Hey, this is a circus soundtrack, you know!) This is besides the Sgt. Pepper track melding into "I Want You (She's so Heavy)," making it also one of several medleys here.

A precedent for this approach was "Beyond the Valley of a Day in the Life," a drop-the-needle sound collage by the Residents released in 1977 as one side of The Beatles Play the Residents and the Residents Play the Beatles. Another was, curiously enough, "A Medley of Beatle Tunes," an "a cappella" comedy routine by Father Guido Sarducci.

A second type of mashup for Love - vocals dubbed over a completely different track - also results in some intriguing listening. Check out "Because" featuring ambient sounds. Meanwhile, "Gnik Nus," which is a backwards "Sun King" laid over a tanpura drone, taking the band's penchant for backwards tapes to its logical conclusion!

If you are into that kind of mix, try if you can to locate a video for "Baby You're a Rich Man (Ecstasy Mix)," with the vocals laid over The Go! Team instrumental "Friendship Update."

Another kind of remix consists of highlighting certain parts that bring a different twist into the listening, such as a higher volume for John Lennon's voice in "Glass Onion" and the bridge of plucked strings emphasized in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

"Strawberry Fields Forever" takes this further exponentially, with John Lennon's unaltered voice and solo guitar from a demo version to lay it on top of the familiar instrumental. This may be the ultimate internal (same artist) mashup, featuring also horns from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Not to mention, on top of it all, "Penny Lane" and even the harpsichord from "Piggies" and the end of "Hello Goodbye."

The crowning medley moment is probably just of two tracks - "Tomorrow Never Knows / Within You Without You" - that weave tautly the energy and depth of both songs.

Recommended for: anyone open to Beatles remixes/mashups that strongly challenge those production notions.

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