Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX: We’re New Here

Label: XL Recordings

This album does not fall under the rule of “remix albums are superfluous and worse than the originals” because, despite what some people are saying/writing, it is not a remix album -- at least not in any normal sense. Yes, snippets of Scott-Heron’s voice are taken from his 2010 comeback I’m New Here (and from several much older songs as well), but not the instrumental beds. Jamie XX (whose work here is musically unrelated to the sound of his band, The XX) uses Scott-Heron’s voice for its inimitable textures and for a few indelible phrases, but the results are not songs, they are eccentric, skewed electronic grooves. That said, XX makes the integration of voice and grooves highly complementary, so while the surfaces here are a lot shinier and a lot less organic than Scott-Heron’s usual soul-jazz hip-hop, the new vibe works well.