Combustication Remix

Medeski Martin & Wood

While it's fairly standard practice to follow up a popular album with an EP of remixes, it's not something that happens every day in the jazz world. Then again, Medeski Martin & Wood are not an average jazz band. With the addition of DJ Logic for the Combustication album, MMW pushed their sound further outside the realm of jazz music, and this remix project confirms what we knew all along: MMW are headed even further out and they probably won't be coming back anytime soon. Best to stop worrying about what to call their music (avant jazz space funk?) and just dig it. The Combustication Remix EP is heavy on the beats and, thanks to the likes of The Automator, Guru, and Yuka Honda, heavily influenced by hip-hop beats. The best (and oddest) remix on the EP, however, doesn't come from a hip-hop big shot, but rather the king of space funk himself, Bill Laswell, who squeezes "Satan's Church of Hypnotized Logic" for all it's worth while still keeping the track's crucial icy-hot keyboard riff intact. --S. Duda

Combustication Remix Album: