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2012 is shap­ing up to be a big year for Philly Soul fans.  The leg­endary Philadelphia International Records label is cel­e­brat­ing its 40-year anniver­sary and has teamed up with Harmless Records to release a vari­ety of reis­sues that pay trib­ute to the satin-soul her­itage it cre­ated dur­ing its glory years in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.  Philadelphia International — The Re-Edits is the first release in this series and it’s a dar­ing col­lec­tion that bypasses the usual “col­lect the stan­dards” approach to cre­ate a release that forges a link between clas­sic Philly soul and today’s d.j.-driven dance music scene.

Philadelphia International — The Re-Edits offers a very per­sonal take on what makes Philly Soul great by allow­ing an inter­na­tional col­lec­tion of d.j.‘s to rework a vari­ety of tracks from the Philadelphia International archives.  To the credit of com­pil­ers Jay Negron and Ian Dewhirst, they didn’t go for the expected “remix the hits” approach.  There are a few standard-bearers here but the real focus is the deep cat­a­log stuff that crate-digging afi­ciona­dos obsess over.  For exam­ple, cult faves like Jean Carn and the Jones Girls are high­lighted no less than three times each on this set.

This set also embraces a vari­ety of approaches to the mate­r­ial.  Despite the set’s title, re-edits aren’t the only thing that is going on here.  In fact, there are a hand­ful of cuts that add new pro­duc­tion, includ­ing new rhythm tracks and a vari­ety of mix­ing effects, to the selec­tions.  For exam­ple, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “Be For Real” is trans­formed by Tim McAllister from a moody bal­lad into an uptempo house music dance­fest while The Noodleman uses a bar­rage of dub-style echo effects to rework McFadden & Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin Us Now” so it ceases to be a disco step­per and instead becomes a ver­i­ta­ble roller­coaster of spacey peaks and valleys.

Occasionally, there is a moment of over­reach on these rad­i­cal rework­ings — for instance, DJ Friction’s redux of the Jones Girls’ “Dance Turned Into Romance” over­does some trippy vocal re-edits dur­ing the cho­rus — but the major­ity of these genre-benders hit the right blend of adding the new and respect­ing the vin­tage.  Perhaps the best exam­ple of this approach is the Deep&Disco rework of The O’Jays’ “Darling Darling Baby”: a clas­sic Philly Soul bal­lad is sub­tly revised with an inspired use of echo and some beat-chopping to cre­ate a psy­che­deli­cized hi-tech won­der.  It sounds clas­si­cally soul­ful and breath­tak­ingly mod­ern all at once, which is the ideal achieve­ment for an exper­i­ment like this.

Elsewhere, Philadelphia International — The Re-Edits presents cuts that adhere closer to the re-edit tem­plate but add in a mod­ern remix touch or two.  For exam­ple, DJ Apt One’s re-edit of “Wake Up Everybody” by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes sticks close the track of the epic orig­i­nal but gives it a nice “book­ends” effect by open­ing and clos­ing it with a stripped-down intro that adds a slight bit of echo to the vocals.  Another strong entry in this style is Todd Terje’s take on the Dee Dee Sharp Gamble favorite “Easy Money”: the sweet, mellow-jazz funk fla­vor of the orig­i­nal track is high­lighted but he adds in a killer dub-heavy per­cus­sion break that is tailor-made for a mod­ern dance floor’s needs.

That said, the remain­ing half of Philadelphia International — The Re-Edits is devoted to classic-style re-edits that mix things up with­out any remix-style retouch­ing of the orig­i­nal record­ings.  For exam­ple, a D.J. who goes by the name Morning Star goes the Tom Moulton route and turns in a trio of re-edits that extend the Philly groove with­out call­ing atten­tion to its edits: the best of these is prob­a­bly a re-edit of Jean Carn’s “If You Wanna Go Back” that seam­lessly expands the Latin-style rhythm with­out overex­tend­ing the melody.  Jimmy The Twin’s re-edit of “Message In Our Music” by the O’Jays is another gem in this vein, a 9-minute epic that takes adven­ture of the rich, acoustic tex­tures of the orig­i­nal cut with­out wear­ing out its welcome.

Finally, it should be noted that there are edits here that show an adven­tur­ous touch with­out ever aban­don­ing the orig­i­nal ele­ments: DJ Mila’s take on Dexter Wansel’s “Life On Mars” strips down the original’s atmos­pheric niceties to iso­late its relent­less jazz-funk core while a hard-driving take on Billy Paul’s “Only The Strong Survive” by J*Ski (a.k.a. com­piler Jay Negron) focuses on Paul’s between-verse vamp­ing and some adven­tur­ous horn work to cre­ate a real barn­stormer of a pure-dance track.  It’s kind of like a Walter Gibbons remix, only it focuses on the brass sec­tion for its per­cus­sive drive instead of the drums.

All in all, Philadelphia International — The Re-Edits is a gen­er­ous set that applies a mod­ern spirit of adven­ture to clas­sic grooves with­out los­ing sight of the musi­cal­ity and sweet­ness that made the orig­i­nal ver­sions so spe­cial to soul music fans.  Some of the flour­ishes may be a bit wild for the purists out the open-minded will quickly hear that there is some­thing here for every­one — and all the inclu­sions reflect the “love is the mes­sage” ethos of Philly Soul.