Track Listing
Dreams Within A Dream (Halfred Remix)
Traversing The Endless Road (Nanosphere Remix)
Close Eyes In A Desert Storm (Gumi Remix)
One That Shows The Way (Somatoast Remix)
Longing For Home (DISSOLV Remix)
At Last, Our Refuge (Mumuskshu Remix)
Praise Her, The Fire Keeper (TRIBONE Remix)
Longing For Home (Mindex Remix)
Realms Of Splendor (DRRTYWULVS Remix)
One That Shows the Way (MantisMash Remix)
Realms of Splendor (Erothyme Remix)
Praise Her, the Fire Keeper (Pitch Black Remix)
Breathing the Mysteries (Bluetech’s Berlin School Mix)
Blending a range of interesting instruments and middle Eastern influences, Breath Reimagined is the first volume in the Desert Dwellers series and a hedonistic trip that begins with chilled, atmospheric beats before progressing into much more driven basslines and electronica influences. Spread across 14 different remixed tracks, Breath Reimagined is a good enough showcase album to throw on in the background while you’re doing other things but doesn’t quite do enough to grab your attention for the duration of its run-time.
The album itself draws on a lot of influence from the Middle East and right from the word go, Desert Dwellers wastes no time whisking you up and transporting you to the sun-kissed desert. “Dreams Within A Dream” showcases the wonderful strums of the Egyptian Oud (a lute used in a lot of Middle Eastern music) and toward the latter half of this track combines interesting sound effects before all of this is stripped out and replaced by some gorgeous female vocals. It’s a strong track to start on and arguably the best of the bunch. As the album progresses, more driven basslines and some muddied distortion is added to signify a shift in tone, moving the album in a much more electronic direction.
This is certainly felt during DISSOLV’s remix of ‘Longing For Home’, which utilizes this harder bassline well and ditches the Oud and other African-centric instruments in favour of studio synths to signify the aforementioned changing tone. This is particularly evident during the second half of the mix but of course, there are a few songs here that try to bridge the gap between the two differing styles. MantisMash’s remix of “One That Shows the Way” is one such example, doing well to combine the minimalist feel of the early parts of this volume with the electronica sound late on.
As a showcase for different artists and quite what can be done with a few different pieces of music, Breath Reimagined is a decent showcase and one that offers a different flavour to the usual Western-based electronica albums you’d expect. The remixes are pretty good and the changing tone is an interesting concept, one that’s executed quite well across the album. It won’t be for everyone and a few of the remixes do tend to get lost in the bassy sonic late on but as an opening volume, there’s certainly enough here to pique your interest going forward.
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Verdict - 6.5/10
6.5/10