Tiki - Flux

Rating: * * * *

Considering the popularity of Tiki's Past Present Future album from 2007, this is possibly the most eagerly anticipated remix album in New Zealand music history. However, the reason that genre-defying album, which mixed dub, dance, pop and traditional Maori music, sold more than 30,000 copies was mainly due to catchy acoustic anthem Always On My Mind. Flux is an entirely different, and thunderous prospect to that inviting wee ditty.

It starts with non-album track David Lange You Da Bomb, a brash political statement backed by a barrage of breaks and beats. Forget about easing into this album as Taane takes the late Labour prime minister's masterful rhetoric and anti-nuclear stance on to the dancefloor with samples from his famous Oxford Union debate in 1985. Who can forget Lange's retort "I can smell the uranium on [your breath] as you lean towards me"?

The shimmering versions of Our Favourite Target, Burning Fire and the Massive Attack-meets-dub step take on It's All In Your Head, is a slight reprieve before the punishing highlight of Razorgang's Tangaroa remix. The original haka-driven tune was powerful enough, but with the oscillating darkness of dub step going head-to-head with kapa haka it makes an even more fearsome, chest-slapping impact.

Midway through there's a flurry of spiralling drum'n'bass reworks, the best being Teknik's swingin' Wotcha Got and State Of Mind's frantic and tough take on This Is It.

After the blah, interlude-like version of Always On My Mind the album takes a dub turn - with Pitch Black's Sleep Whisperer a tranquil beauty - bringing a smouldering and eerie end to a manic and well-put together record.

Scott Kara