[Tirk]

There’s something about the name Greg Wilson that tends to inspire awe in even the most hardened of musos: His legendary turns DJing and creating re-edits from reel to reel tapes through to spreading the sounds of electro-funk throughout Manchester via his 1983 residency at The Haçienda. That’s combined with his abandonment of DJing at his pinnacle to concentrate on producing the likes of the once timely Ruthless Rap Assassins and Yello. As one would expect, he made a rather loud return to the fray in early ’00s during the heady days of nu-disco, dropping the killer LP, Credit to The Edit, on Tirk. Consisting of hand cut edits a la 1983, one saw a number of tracks which harked back to the ’70s and ’80s. Cuts such as Chaka Khan’s “I Feel For You,” “I Can’t Turn The Boogie Loose” by the Controllers and “Rockers Revenge” all made an appearance, complete with the excellent, seams ‘n all cuts and bounces. The LP was such as classic that after speaking to one of the Tirk chaps, apparently it’s still shifting units today. CTTE 2, however, is something of a different breed — as if Wilson’s been fully updated with the contemporary technology and his forays back onto the dance floor have provided him with some new inspiration. So as opposed to the picks of old we get tracks from the likes of 1gnition, Crazy P and Escort. And where there once were seams, there are none — with all re-edits being done via the magical wonders of computers.

Granted, they’re not all contemporary classics. Opening the collection is Roxy Music’s “Love is The Drug” which, by my ears seems to have been re-jigged so well, one can barely tell the difference from the original. This surmise pretty much covers the re-edits which use classics as the point of departure such as the instrumental, disco-fied Greg Edit of “Voodoo Ray” and the slightly lively edit of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark’s “Messages.” It’s only when he gets involved in the disco fused contemporary tracks that things get interesting. 40 Thieves’ “Don’t Turn It Off” rolls with a slap bass disco vigor that the original fails to muster (so much so that this mix has found its way onto several mixes and collections in the past few months). The aforementioned Crazy P cut, “Lady T,” alongside Gary Davis’ “One Lifetime To Live” are all about that slow mid-’90s horizontal funk laze. The gem in the crown however is Escort’s “Starlight,” which is given the sex-infused spacey cowbell-‘n-strings treatment. Whether this collection will be as well loved as its predecessor is to be seen, considering the excellently executed though somewhat ephemeral nature of some of the tracks. Indeed, it may have been the seams that enamored fans to him. That aside, when he strikes gold here, he does so with skill. Good, but one waits to see what Vol. 3 brings.