My friends and I have a ongoing comedy routine regarding Steven Wilson in our offline threads. The peripatetic musician is equally known among cognoscenti for his remixes of classic canon as he is for his own bands [Porcupine Tree] and solo music. His remix CV touches the various veins of Art Rock, Pop, and Prog, with bands as disparate as Yes, Tears For Fears, ABC★★★, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Roxy Music, XTC, Simple Minds, Suede, and even Ultravox. There is a lot of Monk-bait with his hands all over it. Even so, the remix projects fly out of his studio so fast and furiously, that we all joke about how he must be an insomniac, or else he pawns off his many jobs to assistants while he skims the cream, poolside.

My indulgence of the now famous “Steven Wilson Remix” is primarily limited to the few artists I still collect. I have his “In The Court Of The Crimson King” 2.0/5.1 remix but that’s because it’s my only copy of the album! I didn’t plan on re-buying every title by the band he’s mixed anew. I have his Roxy Music, Simple Minds and ABC★★★ projects [“Sparkle In the Rain” and “The Lexicon Of Love” in 5.1], but I’m still living on my ancient CDs of the first two Tears For Fears albums. What can I say? I’m not that passionate about them. [Monk gives his copy of “Songs From The Big Chair” a side eye glance…]

XTC I have no interest in hearing remixes of. I still don’t have one of their albums. Nor do I need to hear Suede remixes. For that matter, I don’t want to hear the numerous Bowie remixed albums, either… I’ve got to draw the line somewhere. But Ultravox are a band we’re still all-in on. Even after their last two disappointing studio albums. The tooth-gnashing “Brilliant” stopped me from “collecting” Ultravox, but I still want all of the 40th anniversary ultraboxes! And the fine RSD issues that have been, amazingly, issued in America.

Even so, up front, I was publicly contemplating skipping the still unreleased “Lament” box. While I consider it the final “classic” Midge Ure era recording, I also find it a half-step towards the far less interesting Ure solo career that followed. And on those grounds, it’s a bit of a mixed bag with me. Even so, I was hot to buy the Record Store Day LP of four new 12″ remixes from the album by the remix wunderkind. Since I was in the UK for the event this year, I made the effort the day after to buy a copy of the one disc I had to have in this year’s flood of wax.

Ultravox: Lament Extended Remixes – US – LP [2024]

1. White China [Steven Wilson 12″ Re-Mix] 7:49
2. Man Of Two Worlds [Steven Wilson 12″ Re-Mix] 8:49
3. When The Time Comes [Steven Wilson 12″ Re-Mix] 7:16
4. A Friend I Call Desire [Steven Wilson 12″ Re-Mix] 8:11

“White China” began with a bang, followed by metronomic ticking throughout and the sampled 16th note hook, which repeated twice, and the bass line. The arpeggiator hook from the 1984 extended mix played out right up front, but the shaker samples were used sparingly to “salt” the mix. The track had a false ending at the 5:00 mark, but that was where Midge’s vocals delivered the first verse in a spacious mix with the metronomic percussion, hi-hats, and the twangy guitar as the sole accompaniment. The for the rest of the song the string patches, and full galloping instrumentation of the music bed returned for its urgency.

There was a drop in the last minute before the crisp theme restated to the fade in the coda. The overall impression was a less gimmicky track, besotted with the lure of the sampler, and a more continuous piece of music. Something that sounded like a band might play it, rather than a cut and paste construction, seemingly indebted to the Art of Noise. All of the other mixes of this I’ve heard could be endlessly edited together in a DAW for a mix as long as you wanted to hear. But his one might prove to be the exception to the rule.

A dramatically different “Man Of Two Worlds” treated us to the isolated Mae MacKenna swirling in a huge acoustic space, swathed in gallons of reverb, before the melancholy piano of Billy Currie entered the mix with the theme. Then drum machine gave us discipline as Ms. MacKenna and the lowing synths continued the theme. To be followed by percussion that sounded all new to these ears. Joined together with sawing, jittery viola as the bass entered the mix. Newly prominent so that we could actually hear what Chris Cross had been doing on this track [and it was very tasty indeed] in this much wetter, more exciting mix that actually put across the Celtic mystery that was attempted on the much drier 1984 version.

Piano accents shot through the buildup until all percussion dropped to leave the bass and string synths the sole spotlight as joined by Midge’s guitar and the drum at the mix’s halfway point. Then Midge entered the track vocally with mostly Billy’s piano for accompaniment. Midge was less murky in the mix this time. Everything was less murky in the mix as the song galloped toward its conclusion, which was now the original intro to the song. Ending on an extended sigh of a synth. Wow! I was really enjoying this song for the first time with all of its elements completely reconfigured in a more dynamic and crisp mix instead of the flat, dry song that was the original mix.

Next: …Ultravox, Or Japan?