Originally released as two EPs on the Blue Juice label, last summer's re-issue of Catechism collected those hip-hop remixes into a cohesive, if somewhat redundant, whole. DJ Spooky and Killah Priest's latest collaboration couldn't compare compare to their previous collaboration on Spooky's 1998 album Riddim Warfare, but nevertheless, the single was laid out on many a remixer's operating table, stripped, gassed, and primed for surgical exploration.
Featuring the competent if not spectacular skills of extended Wu-Family member Killah Priest, the original mix is nothing special, a half-assed stab at urban grit that fails to generate synergy between the academic street arrangements of Professor Spooky and Killah Priest's innocuous, nondescript flow, a mix of Shaolin grandstanding and failed philosophy struggling to break out of its tired, rehearsed rut. While Riddim Warfare's "Degree Zero" held its own next to the complex rhyme equations of Kool Keith and Sir Menelik, "Catechism" needs all the help it can get to break free of a mediocre blueprint.
Yet the listener gets only a taste of the possibilities. The majority of the chosen remixers-- including Big Dada representatives New Flesh and turntablist extraordinaire Deckwrecka-- walk down a less inventive path, and turn in straightforward variations that target the track's obvious hip-hop flavor, taking a cue from the dirty atmosphere in Killah Priest's delivery. New Flesh's mix is predictably Ninja Tune: With big, acid jazz horns and a drum beat that gets lost under Killah Priest's bombast, it's repetitive in the worst way, an under-the-radar nephew of every tired loop you've heard on Urban Radio since 2000. Much more satisfying is Mex Black's "Grass" remix, which pairs a haunted piano and Fantasia strings with flanged synths, and a sped up rip of Priest's vocals, finding an untapped energy in his flow that makes the cut spark. The woodwind dancehall of Deckwrecka's remix also shines, its crown jewels the guest MCs MCD and 2Ice, with his rough ragga growl.
Long the scourge of 12" promos and import singles the world over, one third of Catechism is instrumental and acapella; a potentially interesting bonus for crate diggers when spread over two vinyl EPs, but a surefire momentum killer on one CD. It's torture enough hearing Killah Priest's weak opening line "I seek revenge upon the earth like Christ" repeated a dozen times before the disc ends, but back-to-back versions of Ward 29's pedestrian "Runaways" remix make for masochistic overkill. Mex Black's contribution is begging to be heard sans vocals but, curiously, it doesn't get the instrumental treatment.
What this all boils down to is a lack of invention. Catechism is forgettable for much of its 40 minutes, and not until the final cut does the track get a fresh, inventive interpretation courtesy of Unreals' remix, which pushes "Catechism" further up the genre family tree into drum n' bass territory. It's still a fairly safe branch to dangle from, but it works, with a droning intro, and an increasingly aggressive high roller of a break; the track delivers, and successfully reworks an easily missed Killah Priest boast-- "Comin' as the ill-ass rappuh/ With that sick ass laughtuh"-- into a crafty, memorable hook.
The whole point of the remix as an art form is to bring something new and personal to the table: Dogmatic adherence to the source material isn't going to produce anything revelatory. The massive 2x12" free-for-all on the East Flatbush Project's "Tried by 12" from a few years back took that track's loping hip-hop spine and contorted it in a million directions; almost every cut was a success. Catechism, despite a few solid vertebrae, is in desperate need of a chiropractor's second opinion.
