Critic's Review
Heather Phares, All Music Guide
Cornelius' CM EP applies his whimsical, eclectic sound to songs by artists like Buffalo Daughter, the High Llamas, and Coldcut. The results range from a jazzy electro-pop reworking of Money Mark's "Maybe I'm Dead" to a thrashy, monster-movie version of U.N.K.L.E's "Ape Shall Never Kill Ape" to the surfy, cyber-funk breakdown on the remix of Buffalo Daughter's "Great Five Lakes." Fragmented as this may seem, Cornelius' flexible mixing style holds these divergent sounds together. Most of the remixes also use samples from Fantasma, providing added sonic cohesion. The analog synth and theremin noisefest on the remix of Coldcut's "Atomic Moog 2000" features snippets of "Star Fruit, Surf Rider"; different samples from that song also pop up on the synthetically pastoral reworking of the Pastels' "Windy Hill," which mixes chirpy electronic noises and breezy synths with the original's sweetly hushed vocals. The electro-tropical makeover of the High Llamas' "Homespin Rerun" and the garage-inflected kraut rock on the remix of Salon Music's "Galaxie Express" reflect the extremes of Cornelius' sound while presenting different sides of those groups. Though it's not quite as captivating as his own music, CM is an interesting and entertaining experiment that will please rabid Cornelius fans.
