Bloom: Remix Album (CD - 2005)

No stranger to remixes, Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan has had her atmospheric pop/rock compositions reworked since her 1989 debut, TOUCH. BLOOM is, in fact, the second McLachlan collection devoted entirely to reinterpretations of her songs, and it draws primarily from 2003's AFTERGLOW for source material.

Here Junkie XL (renowned for his raucous take on Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation") adds an ominous tone to "World on Fire," and Thievery Corporation gives "Dirty Little Secret" a minimal backing of shuffling beats and entrancing ambient textures. While some treatments work better than others, every track on BLOOM manages to offer something that makes it notably different from its original, with the only constant being McLachlan's emotive and immediately distinctive voice. Most charmingly, reggae legends Sly & Robbie transform "Train Wreck" into a spare, shuffling R&B number, and Talvin Singh works traditional Indian instrumentation into "Answer," showing that the possibilities for reworking McLachlan's spacious tunes are nearly endless. minimize