Rising Mixes

Chronique

This 58-minute disc takes four of the tracks from the Yoko Ono/IMA album Rising -- "Talking to the Universe," "Ask the Dragon," "Where Do We Go from Here," and "Rising" -- and assigns remix duties to, respectively, Cibo Matto, Ween, Tricky, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. Of course, "remix" is a restrained word for what the remixers do. For example, Cibo Matto adds two drum sets, extra keyboards and samples, and a rap by Miho Hatori to "Talking to the Universe," resulting in an extensively revised version of the song. Gene and Dean Ween and Andrew Weiss also play along with "Ask the Dragon," retaining only Yoko Ono's arch spoken vocal. The album also includes "The Source," credited to ABA Allstars, who are led by the Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch, which contains some of Ono's patented screaming, and the 30-minute "Franklin Summer," which is not a special mix, but rather a new soundscape by Ono and IMA consisting of her ululating voice (and, halfway in, some improvised singing), acoustic guitars, and percussion.

© William Ruhlmann /TiVo