Waxko - And Free Monkey Forgave Man

Hear The Track Here

First up this month is a bit of a weird choice on my part. This track is not available on Soundclick and is not available for download either (boooo). It's also, as it 'appens, a remix and a famous remix at that. That is the sole reason this is on the list this month because I am - as you know - a bit of a remix demon myself. Seeing as the original track is by none other than Peter Gabriel, the king of worldly angst - and IMHO in his most creative period so far. Shock The Monkey (one of the man's classic tracks) was up for remixing here and.... Well, let me put it like this. I've done thousands of remixes but when you are dealing with little bits of history, it's different.

Waxko is obviously a better man than this yeller belly...

He's also a wise man who knows not to fu... not to fu.... not to mess around with the flow of the original song too much. Come on, remember this track! It was EVERYWHERE for a while and I have to say that Waxko has done a cracking job on keeping the original feel and somehow injecting a fresh burst of energy in what had become a very familiar (maybe overfamiliar) the original had become. For my money, I felt there was probably a bit too much of the 'shock the monkey' strapline, especially in the later sections of the track. Waxko also says he had to downgrade the bitrate to get this track uploaded and I feel that is partly to blame for the lightweight feel of the sound.

I really had to pump up my own sound system to get something meaningful out of this track and that obviousy is a rendering problem, but not all the blame should be laid there. I felt that some of the instrumentation tended to get lost in amongst all the action. As you might suspect, this isn't a track that could - in any shape or form - be termed chill-out. Waxko brings a knowing jungleist sound to this particular party and as good as it was to hear this, I personally could have done with a bit more Waxko and a bit less His Majesty, know what I mean? Speaking of which, all the way through this review I kept thinking I was listening to Nad Sylvan, and if if that ain't the damndest thing then I don't know what is. If you loved the original you are gonna go ape when you blast this bad boy into your earballs.

KAPOW, action jackson. Recommended for some wild adventures.