Peace out

So we had a lovely e-mail from the fabulous remixers over at Buffetlibre (see their swizzles of "Love Kills" by Little Boots and the Sidechains remix of "Into the Groove" by you know who) who have been working on a project with Amnesty International for two years. Don't run a mile now you know it's got something to do with charity!

They've pulled in the talents of 180 artists from 50 countries (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Marc Almond, Patrick Wolf, 4hero, Dubstar, Tahiti 80, Dan Deacon, Micah P Hinson, Steve Wynn, The Antlers, Mogwai, Mexican Institute Of Sound, A Place To Bury Strangers, The Toxic Avenger, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Stereo Total, Vive La Fète and Bart Davenport to name a few) to create a 'musical atlas of the world'. Pretty cool idea. Some of the pieces are vair interresant; Patrick Wolf (he literally is the pop star version of Marmite here on S&N) created a quite noice cover of Kate Bush's "Army Dreamers". An artist called Rockettothesky made a spine-tinglingly haunting cover of Bowie's "Heroes" - actual shivers. There seems like a wealth of beautiful music created by people literally all over the world - it's refreshing to see Iraqi-French artists included.

Anyway the entire compilation (180 songs!) is available for a small donation to Amnesty International over here and you can preview the tracks streaming first anyway.

Everyone loves a good cover. Don't they?

We've always been a fan of covers - we couldn't really tell you what about them appeals so wildly to us, but for as long as we can remember we've eagerly tracked down as many covers as we could get our greedy fatter-then-they-should-be-for-the-average-preteen hands on. Mash-ups, songs sampling other songs, anything like that all fall under that umbrella for us - anything where the lines between individual songs and artists are blurred.

A few months ago we stumbled across this little gem of a site. As we understand, it is run by a group of Spanish DJs, and all the music on there is free to download - bonus points. They gots da covers section - "Rewind" - and a remix section - "Unpronounceable Spanish Name", which we would highly recommend. The Rewind Project sees lesser-known, mostly independent bands and artists cover a well-known song by a pretty famous artiste. Mostly hit and miss, but quite a few hits, definitely worth a listen. Hearing a refreshed version of an over-played Heart FM favourite is always a pleasure.

We can't mention the site without noting the fabulous remixes by the Buffetlibre DJs themselves we got hold of from there. "Into the Groove" is spinned in a fashion which unmistakeably shits all over the "Into the Groove of 2008", into a mix we regularly pray to hear the following weekend in a club. This writer thinks he's a massive cunt, but he cannot deny the glittering heinous gayness shining through the remixed Patrick Wolf nu-song, "Who Will", and a tired favourite of early 90s ravers has been smacked up with a pile of 2009 euphoria which will make the hairs on the back of your neck stick up so urgently you remember the last time that happened (probably the first time you heard Ultra Nate's "Free").

Check it out. We 'endorse'.

Recommendations
"Into the Groove (Sidechains Remix)" - Madonna
"Free (Sidechains Remix)" - Ultra Nate