Various Artists: Rewind3! Original Classics Reworked, Remixed, Reedited and Rewound 3

On Rewind3, Ubiquity’s international roster of jazz and electronic artists from the US, England, Portugal, Italy, and Sweden, puts their unique spin on material by Herbie Hancock, Sun Ra, and Gil Scott-Heron, plus AC/DC, the Monkees, and Johnny Cash. Unlike previous releases in the Rewind series, though, 3 contains no remixes or re-edits—every track is a brand new cover version.

Rewind3 begins deep in the verdant rainforest of “Jungle Fever,” Louie Vega’s update of the Chakachas’ exotic Latin funk underground classic. With the next track, the groove quickly shifts to the danceclub, where it generally remains, Greyboy chopping up the beats and mixing new vocals into “Genevieve.” Aurora Dawn’s lead vocal fuels Spiritual South’s retro-soul yet modern club feel of “Stars and Rockets,” nicely programmed into the Spaceboys’ broken-beat reconstruction of Sun Ra’s pre-ancestral, postmodern “Space is the Place.”

Electric jazz-funk has proven fertile ground for dancefloor samplers, and on Rewind3 John Arnold with Ayro (Jeremy Ellis) thump out “Rough” from Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock album, then Ellis splashes new colors on Hancock’s classic “Chameleon.” Other “new twists on old favorites” seem more mutant and obscure, such as the artist Nobody’s deep space exploration of the Monkees’ “Porpoise Song,” This Kid Named Miles’ dubby ska highstep through Cash’s “Ring of Fire,” and Bing Ji Ling’s slippery neo-soul version of AC/DC’s “All Night Long.”

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