Last year’s Gil Scott-Heron album I’m New Here was one of the unlikeliest comebacks you could imagine, after the soul legend and so-called ‘Godfather of Rap’ was coaxed into doing his first record for 13 years through letters sent to him while he was in prison. The man we have to thank for that is XL Recordings boss Richard Russell, who wrote the letters and produced the album, and he is also central to this project, having asked young buck Jamie Smith – member of The xx and in-demand DJ, producer and remixer – to take the original album and rework it, his way. The results, it must be said, are revelatory.

Produced with Scott-Heron’s consent but without his direct involvement, Smith has not so much remixed the tracks as produced an entirely new record from the same sessions. The track list is markedly different, the most notable absentees being three of the lyrically darkest tracks – ‘On Coming From A Broken Home’ parts one and two and the Robert Johnson cover, ‘Me And The Devil’. Recast in an album heavily informed by dubstep, hip-hop and garage, Scott-Heron’s throaty, lived-in presence occasionally recalls the ominous dub poetry of Kode9 collaborator The Spaceape, but overall We’re New Here feels redemptive and uplifting, not bleak. ‘Your Soul And Mine’ is inspired in its sampling of Rui Da Silva’s club classic ‘Touch Me’, while the romantic ‘I’ll Take Care Of You’ is reimagined as a house anthem in its own right.

But don’t misunderstand this record as an incongruous meeting of two incompatible worlds – Smith’s respect for the source material and for Gil Scott-Heron as an artist is clear, most obviously on ‘My Cloud’, which uses a beautifully sung 1970s soul vocal dredged from the vaults. It’s a nod to Smith’s childhood, hearing his parents’ Gil Scott-Heron records for the first time, and a reminder of what a singular and important artist Gil Scott-Heron has been – and remains. Chris Jones

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KEY TRACKS: ‘NY IS KILLING ME’, ‘YOUR SOUL AND MINE’, ‘MY CLOUD’.
FOR FANS OF: BURIAL, KODE9 & THE SPACEAPE, FALTY DL.