Panthalassa - The Remixes: Miles Davis

We start this evening in a downtown lounge, sipping a drink and listening to the traffic roll by in it's muted thunder. The glasses on the bar start to shake along with the rhythm of the train passing overhead. Mystery surrounds you in an ever growing shroud, each tendril of brass an invitation to slip further into the embrace of endless dusk.

Soon, the scene drops you to street level, harsh lights passing overhead one after the other, the frenzied pace of a Saturday night. Every man and woman trying to get as much pleasure out of these brief moments that life allows them, wrenching out emotions strained under the weight of their own self doubt. Now this narrow beer soaked road spreads out into a broad street and the sheer size of the night becomes apparent to you. It is immense, and we are very small.

Miles Davis was relentlessly experimental in his musical career and this remix sounds to me like what the man would be doing if he were still around. He would be moving forward with the force of a typhoon and leaving most of the world confused in his wake. This album has beats the size of skyscrapers laced on top of some of the slickest tunes ever to grace my ears. Imagine a secret meeting between Bjork and DJ Shadow on top of a building in the dead of winter, exchanging vinyl like secret agents. I keep this one stacked in my secret vault of Forbidden Beats with Saul Williams, DJ Krush, Yuki Kajiura and a bag of instrumentals from MF Doom.

Good for: Plotting the getaway plan, smoking a cigarette in the moonlight from the veranda of your penthouse.

Man, this took some looking. Check out samples at Amazon.com (you'll need the Realplayer plugin to listen.)