oh astro

Champions Of Wonder

Amazing plunderphonic/cut-up genius from the same label that's given us the wonderful Girl Talk albums and indispensable Steinski retrospective, these Superior edits from husband and wife duo Jane Dowe and Hank Hofler feature countless tunes that you'll instantly recognise, spliced and re-moulded with style and an effortless invention. Unlike labelmate Girl Talk, however, Oh Astro tackle the obliteration of their source material from a viewpoint that sometimes defies any party-starting strategies, 'Xanadu' for instance is sheer vocoded lovliness, buoyed on by whizzing, popping rhythmic edits, while the likes of 'Snow Queen' and 'Hello Fuji Boy' come a little closer to overtly embracing a melody. The colourful, fractured strangeness of Oh Astro is mirrored by the Terre Thaemlitz artwork on the sleeve; the digitally corrupted, cutesy images pretty accurately reflect the nature of the album itself. Somewhere between Secondo, Osymyso and Max Tundra, 'Champions of Wonder' comes to you with a massive recommendation.