It's just as well they've put out a second volume of this. Even though the first volume of Orb remixes, originally released in 1996 and reissued last year, does indeed have some crackers, such as the rejig of Pop Will Eat Itself's Home, it seemed to cover only part of the story, and the second volume rectifies this. Whilst the Orb's recent output has flagged somewhat, particularly with last year's disappointing Cydonia, at least this makes up for that in spades.

The tracks run the usual gamut of Orb cliches, so the usual array of odd vocal snippets and spacey effects, a firm grasp of dub, sonic experimentalism and straightforward *doonk*, and the tendency to not leave much of the original track behind are well in evidence. Not that it's monochromatic; it lurches between the sweet, the bangin', and the downright weird (The Damage Manual's "Sunset Gun"). The subjects tackled include art rock types (Can, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Tangerine Dream), banal pop singers (Robbie Williams, Lisa Stansfield, who actually sounds *sexy* for once.), fellow travellers (KLF, System 7, Witchman). Particularly notable are the remixes of Primal Scream's "Higher Than The Sun" and the Nobel Prize Mix of Mike Oldfield's "Sentinel".

It's fair to say that this sort of stuff is hardly cutting edge anymore, but The Orb have done the ambient/dance crossover with a joie de vivre that few have matched. The collection is a little hit and miss, perhaps, but most of it is pretty damned good in a chillout way, and with 2½ hours of it, it's well worth the price of entry, especially with it's companion set.