The remix album is an interesting concept that doesn’t always succeed. Mocked by the Aphex Twin on his pointedly titled '21 Minutes for Cash' album, it can be used in the right hands as a brilliant way of offering a new light on a track, opening up new possibilities and directions. Done badly, and it can just sound pointless and a waste of money, with neither party particularly interested in the first place.

Pulseprogramming are a shadowy duo built around the talents of Joel Kriske and Marc Hellner, who deal in mostly abstract, ambient-tinged IDM-based soundscapes. Although Pulseprogramming operate mainly as the core of Kriske and Hellner, they also have an art director and video artist in their midst, and have played with the likes of Add N to X, Kid 606, Mouse on Mars, Mice Parade and Múm. Originally from Portland, Oregon (home of the Aesthetics label, which this is on), they’ve subsequently set up shop in Chicago.

Over two albums their music has embraced elements of the Aphex Twin (particularly his ‘Selected Ambient Works’ series), Seefel, and Boards of Canada, as well as the more abstract elements of Fennesz, Black Dog, Plaid, and modern composers like John Cage. With their second album, 'Tulsa for One Second', they’ve achieved a more approachable sound than their self-titled debut (which contained four songs in a row called ‘There Aren’t’, ‘There Won’t’, ‘There Isn’t’, and ‘There Will Never Be’ – concept album alert!), combining elements of the first record with a more accessible sensibility and, crucially, vocals in places; at times you could even envisage it as a chillier Royskopp. Mostly, though, there’s a surprising sense of emotion and melancholy pervading the tracks that provide individuality among the functional glitches and beats, and which distant it from the robotic inclinations of similar journeymen in a genre not exactly renowned for displaying it's feelings on record. On ‘Off to Do Showery Snapshots’ the disembodied, emotionless vocals ask “What if my fears crumble? How do I walk the same streets?”, while ‘Bless the Drastic Place’ mourns the passing of time and memory against a beautifully evocative piano motif. It’s the kind of wintry soundscapes and haunting music you’d expect to hear coming from the Arctic north, or cities such as Berlin or Vienna (the latter home of the Mego label and Fennesz) rather than the USA, with a distinctly European feel, if not aesthetic sensibility, pervading the tracks. This is the kind of urban music that provides the perfect soundtrack to abstract art, grand city centres, and shiny surfaces of buildings, fully functional but not disposable, utilitarian yet distinctly cerebral.

On this remix project, the band have asked a number of artists – including Aesthetics label mates Hood, Schneider TM and Köhn – to rework tracks from the second album. The opener, Sylvain Chauveau’s version of ‘Within the Orderly Life’, revolves around a minimalist piano line before some heartfelt strings come in. Chauveau strips away the driving beat of the original, leaving a moving, neo-classical lament that wouldn’t be out of place on a Michael Nyman score for a Peter Greenaway film. But it’s Hood’s version of ‘Blooms Eventually’ that’s the most remarkable, an atmospheric reworking that surpasses the inferior original, with that band’s singer delivering the lyrics in his own voice rather than using a sample of the vocals on the original (as most other remixers would have done). Over this the band add the trademark lo-fi beats and plangent shimmering tremolo-laden guitar; close your eyes and it could quite easily be a track off Hood’s 'Cold House' album.
Schneider TM’s version of ‘Suck or Run’ is also great, a paranoid narrative that takes in Hoovers and “hippy shit”, and which includes the immortal couplet “spent a week in Amsterdam / got fucked up on his stuff”. The music utilises harmonica and sprightly acoustic guitar, juxtaposed with the kind of similar glitch pulses that graced his now infamous cover of The Smith’s “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” (renamed ‘The Light 3000’), though it’s inclusion is baffling to say the least considering there doesn’t seem to be an original on the 'Tulsa...' album in the first place.

The aforementioned ‘Bless The Drastic Place’, the highlight of the original album, is given a harder edge by Other People’s Children, who add a distorted pulse but keep the circular piano motif intact with ‘Blessed Be The Remix’, their renamed version. The original albums other real standout, ‘Off to Do Showery Snapshots’, is reworked at least 3 times, first by Static, who echoes the vocals and adds some acid squelches; then by Ghislain Poirier (no, me neither), who turns the song into an electroclash fest replete with refracting 70’s Moog sounds; and then by Pal:Ndrom, who rechristens it ‘String Theory of Photo Fodder’. In fact, confusingly enough some of the songs remixed here have gone under different titles from the originals, so Barbara Morgenstern’s ‘BM Remix’ puts ‘Blooms Eventually’ through a minimal drums and synth workout, while Laub takes ‘Stylophone Purrs and Mannerist Blossoms’ and translates not only the song titles into ‘Tulsa Lebt’ but also the lyrics into, well, German, with a haunting xylophone underneath.

It’s Kohn’s ‘Within Ordinary Long-Distance Life’ (‘Within The Ordinary Life’ on the original), though, that is outstanding here, a cinematic heart-felt reworking with some beautifully evocative keyboards, synth drones, and slivers of piano melody. As what sounds like a string section slowly reaches its stirring, elegant peak, you’re reminded that sometimes these remix albums can be a good idea after all. Disjointed it may be in places – what remix album isn’t? – but don’t let that put you off; this is still definitely worth a look.

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