Nostalgia 77 – One Offs, Remixes & B-Sides

One Offs, Remixes & B-Sides – Nostalgia 77

By Chris Peken

A double CD clean-up of things left lying around the Nostalgia 77 studio, down the back of their couch, and gathering dust on their shelves. Disc one is a bit of a trash and treasure collection of remixes, opening with the hypnotic Quiet Dawn – featuring the sultry and seductive voice of Beth Rowley – and closes with their ska re-working of The White Stripes classic Seven Nation Army – with the soulful Alice Russell on vocal duties. While disc 2 features Nostalgia 77 and Octet, the live outfit that grew from Nostalgia 77 (who remain predominately the work of producer Ben Lamdin), including lives version of The Hope Suite and a brilliantly executed epic Nativeland that is the highlight of both discs collection. To that end the second disc with Octet is more focused and coherent than the remix disc, as one would expect, and perhaps should have been the focus of the release.

*** 1/2