PETE ROCK AND C.L. SMOOTH: WIG OUT TO THEIR VIBE

Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth: They Reminisce Over You (Vibes Mix)
From white promo 12″ (B-side of “Straighten It Out”) (Elektra, 1992)

Both also available on Unreleased Joints.

I’m sure some other audioblog has already posted one or both of these but I finally got my hands on the “Straighten It Out” promo so that gave me an excuse to post these up. If you’re an old fogey like me (read: over 28), you might actually remember when a “Pete Rock remix” was about the best thing you could hope for on a 12″. But Pete didn’t just remake other people’s songs, he took his talents to his and C.L.’s projects too. Let’s just get this out of the way: you don’t improve on “T.R.O.Y.”, period. No way a remix can be better. The “Vibes Mix” is more of something for the curious and the completionist and as it is, it’s actually a slight remix of a remix, meaning, it’s almost the same as the “T.R.O.Y.” remix that appears on the commercial copies of “Straighten It Out,” except that it layers an extra loop of (you guessed it) vibes on top. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong; it’s not everyday you can hear a funky version of “Lady Madonna” (well, actually, it’s covered a lot amongst jazz heads). Maybe the fact that it was a relatively minor remix is the reason they left it off the commercial copies of the 12″ but you can still find it on the promo version of the same single.

As for the “Wig Out Mix” of “Mecca and the Soul Brother,” it’s from the most elusive promo of the early PR/CL releases, a 12″ that features remixes of “The Creator” on the A and “Mecca” remixes on the B. Honestly, I still don’t own this: I copped the remix off the “Unreleased Joints” EP from Japan. It’s a very stripped mix as you can hear: prominent drums, the infamous “U.F.O.” sample, and a sprinkling of horn snippets but for the most part, it’s definitely more sparse than the original version. Again: not essential but a cool alternative.