UK-based drum and bass producer Big Bud (real name Robin O’Reilly) first rose to prominence back in the late nineties as one of the more distinctly soulful and downbeat artists amongst jazz dnb king LTJ Bukem’s Good Looking label roster, the explorations of early 12”” such as ‘State Of Mind’ and ‘Blue 52’ being borne out by the arrival of his debut double album ‘Infinity’ in 1999. While ‘Infinity’ was critically acclaimed amongst the music press upon its release as being one of the best albums of the genre to date and O’Reilly went on to participate in a volume of Good Looking’s ‘Producer’ compilation series, apparent disagreements resulting in the producer breaking away from GLO in more recent years and founding his own Soundtrax imprint, the label upon which this remix companion to last year’s ‘Fear Of Flying’ album arrives. In this case, O’Reilly has certainly assembled an impressive and globally-oriented cast of dnb producers to remix tracks from the aforementioned album, with the likes of Australia’s own Greg Packer and Motive making appearanaces alongside Russians Electrosoul System, German producer The Green Man and UK stalwarts Suv and Nookie.

Greg Packer’s reworking of ‘How I Make My G’s certainly opens this collection with one of its biggest standout highlights, kicking off on a half-tempo dub-dancehall tip, lead by a lazy-sounding ragga MC vocal that guides things down smoothly on a distinctly weed-laced tip, shortly before proceedings accelerate up into headspinning tech-y dnb rhythms and back out again. Evoking a lift stuck somewhere between dub and junglist floors, it’s certainly easily one of the most immediately arresting moments here, to the extent that by comparison Atlantic Connection’s more than serviceable early-Moving Shadowesque rerub of ‘Just Can’t Hold Me Down’ fades into more or less an extremely competent blur.

By contrast, Amazing’s reworking of the soul-drenched ‘Miracle’ offers far more intrigue value, with the UK beautifully playing the male / female vocal harmonies off against the sorts of brooding sub-bass harmonics explored by scene wunderkind Klute as scissoring snare breaks get filtered all over the shop, while Russians Electrosoul System conjure up some seriously eerie beauty on their storming remix of ‘Red Snapper’, placing spinechilling reversed and filtered harmonic pads beneath a battering ram of highly-processed assembly-line breaks and android rattles. German producer Heiner Krause aka The Green Man takes ‘Soundtrax’ out on a deep, dubby tip, teasing slowly with delicate melodic chords and tight snares before being some seriously funky sub-bass swells up in the mix in another excellent moment here, before Melbourne’s Motive winds things up for a dark distorted bass-fuelled rampage through ‘Children Of Jah’ that places steel-plate drum sounds against curiously blurred and phase-shifted female vocals to spectral-sounding effect.

While ‘Fear Of Flying: The Remix Project’ is certainly a solid remix companion to last year’s ‘Fear Of Flying’ album that shows O’Reilly adeptly continuing the dub-soul trajectory explored by his previous GLO releases, if there’s one criticism to be made, it’s perhaps that with a few exceptions many of the tracks here fail to leave much of a lasting impression, neatly staying within the genre’s predictable established boundaries, rather than offering any real surprises. Still, fans of last year’s aforementioned album from Big Bud should be decently served by this remix collection, with more than a few memorable names given the controls.

Check out www.soundtraxrecords.com