Hiroshi Fujiwara, "Classic Dub Classics"

In 2005, Hiroshi Fujiwara (藤原ヒロシ) released a collection of classical music compositions by the likes of Franz Schubert, Maurice Ravel, Frédéric Chopin that he rearranged reimagined as dub tracks. Appropriately, it was put out by Crue-L Records, a label owned and operated by Kenji Takimi (瀧見憲司). At times, the idea comes off as sweet and endearing, at others, as somewhat forced and stilted, but it's at least an interesting listen the whole way through, and certainly mellow.

The trend of interpreting classical music for the electronic age seems to have hit its apex around then, with Fujiwara doing this, Cornelius trying his hand at Johann Sebastian Bach's "Little Fugue in G Minor," and Deutsche Grammophon curating their series of ReComposed albums, to pinpoint a few efforts specifically. Why was that such a thing, though? The experiment that folks like Wendy Carlos began didn't seem to often yield very exciting, rewarding results.

Fujiwara and Takimi will indubitably return to BBBD one day soon, so stay tuned.