Oceanic Remixes Volume IV

Isis seem to enjoy making people suffer, by releasing a variety of limited edition EPs, live albums and remixes. Oceanic Remixes IV has been out of print for a long time now, but after seeing it for sale at a records store for $100 (!) Australian dollars, I decided to part with some cash and get another record.

The three songs on this record are all extremely good. Venetian Snares do a crazy remix of The Beginning and the End. It starts off with some thick, chunky guitar, and some good guitar/bass interplay, before going off into a crazy Drum and Bass song, complete with crazy ass drumming and keyboard stabs. Aaron's vocals are slowed down, and the strange drumming continues.. It almost sounds like a parody, but it works really well, though I'm sure some Isis-ites would consider it Blasphemy.

The next track is very weird.. Out of all the remixes, it's definetly the most far out-there. From Sinking turns from a heavy damn sludge song into a song that could be described as Ambient, but instead of it being the usual relaxing ambient kinda stuff, it's a quite eerie and harrowing experience. It's very spare in it's approach, with normally just the occaisonal sound coming from out of nowhere. Nonetheless, it warms on you, and it's probably my favourite song on this record. The title (From: Sinking To: Drowning) is very appropriate. It's definetly a song to drown too.

The final song is a little bit of a disappointment. It's a strange remix of Weight, turning the ambient centre of Oceanic into a thing full of guitar noise and feedback. It is quite beautiful, but it only lasted a few listens, until you just get sick of it. Maybe I'm wrong though, as for many people, that's one of the best remixes. Oh well.

So while all the songs are fairly good, unless if you're an Isis fanboy (like me) there's not really much point getting this record. There's only 3 songs, it's very expensive, and it's only available on vinyl. Get the Oceanic Remixes & Reinterpretations instead.