Truby Trio (Roland Appel, Christian Prommer, and Rainer Truby) get the remix treatment on Retreated, with remixes from their Elevator Music album by the likes of the Wighnomy Bros, Guillaume Boulard, Gucciman (aka Daniel Klein), Louie Vega (of Vega Records), Señor Coconut (aka Uwe Schmidt), S.U.M.O. (Alf Tumble & Combo), Nickodemus, The Unabombers (Luke Cowdrey & Justin Crawford), Tiefschwarz (Alexander & Sebastian Schwarz), Fabrice Lig, Salzmann & Zech and Yam Who (Andy Williams & Desmond Morgan from the Yam Who label). The compilation comes with one disc with the un-mixed remixes and a bonus disc with the mixes mixed together by Rainer Truby (along with some bonus cuts not included on the first disc).

Truby Trio originally met touring in one of the Compost Records' Future Sounds Of Jazz tours, and have since mixed together a highly syncopated rhythmic sound inspired by the 80s fusion scene, Prince, and Latin jazz. They used the Elevator Music album as a way to collaborate with a ton of other people, and now have gone one step further by letting that result get the remix treatment. And while the first disc is a bit much to take on one sitting, I found the bonus disc actually was the more compelling listen as the Truby Trio tracks all melded together but with the different remix styles setting the tracks apart. The fact that there were some songs repeated twice on the first disc in different mixes made for some repetitive listening. The Rainer Truby mix on disc two makes for a sweet party-like mix, with Rainer pulling together the disparate parts from disc one into another Truby Trio whole.

On the first disc, there are two mixes of New Music: the Wighnomy Bros Remix starts the disc out and is a tad annoying, but the Gucciman's New Music Remix is rather fine as it tech glitches the track in a dub way.

There are also two versions of Make A Move on display. The remixes get away from the original version's whispered vocals and afro percussion and horns and the base piano melody driving the melody to center more on the rolling percussion. Guillaume Boulard's remix brings in the robots with a fat rubber bass, while the S.U.M.O. Rebounce remix speeds up the rhythm for the build-up to the sampled vocal breaks.

Alegre 2004 gets two different versions as well - Louie Vega's Elements Of Life Main Mix is a sweet and funky version which goes for almost 10 minutes (and is reprised in even more versions on the mixed bonus cd). The wordless vocals by Marcia Montez are extended out with the bossa acoustic guitar strums. The Unabombers' Electric Chair Treatment takes a different more repetitive house route for a harder edged sound.

Señor Coconut makes Jaleo a busier, more blaring beast than the original which had some acoustic bossa strumming in a Spanish style.

Speaking of originals - the original version of Runnin' repeated "Runnin" quite a bit (almost annoyingly so). Runnin' (the Nickodemus Remix) tempers that nicely. It's still the more obnoxious of the tunes here.

Universal Love (the Tiefschwarz Remix) takes Marcus Begg's lead vocal (and the background vocals) and the soul bass and gives it a hard funk edge which would make Prince proud.

One of my favorite mixes is definitely the Fabrice Lig Rework of Cruisin' which sounds great on the bonus mixed cd.

On the bonus disc, there are some tracks featured that are not featured in full on the first disc. There are two versions of High Jazz. The Freeform Reform Instrumental of High Jazz was originally released in 2002 in a 9 minute version on the High Jazz single (Part II) and here it's shortened to 7 and a half minutes (the original was a Studio !K7 DJ Kicks track). The V.I.P. Mix starts out the set in a more synth vein, while the Freeform Reform version is funkier.

There's another version of Universal Love (the Âme Rootdown Round Midnite Mix) on the mixed cd which extends this track out in a super sweet house kind of way.

There's also some jam outs on Alegre 2004 by Louie Vega (Louie Vega's Elements Of Life Bonus Beats and his Elements Of Life Amigos Dub) which send the mixed disc into high gear.