Verve Remixed Vol.1: UK Special Edition

Instead, Verve Remixed focuses on the label's mellower side, for an impeccably tailored downtempo collection. Sultry highlights, like the voodoo trip-hop of Tricky's remodelled "Strange Fruit" are numerous, but inevitably it's the label's crown jewels which prove most alluring. Nina Simone's "See-line Woman" rumbles like a frenetic locomotive in the hands of Masters At Work, while her finest hour, "Feelin' Good", is reinvented as shimmering soul by Joe Clausell. As for Sarah Vaughan's classic "Summertime", with the spy movie obsessed United Future Organisation turning up the heat haze with an eerie loop of the original song's smouldering string refrain, it's arguably better than the original. --Dan Gennoe