VA - Covered In Gloria (2017)

Deek’s finely-tuned pop radar in full effect here, pulling together superb cover versions from a sprawling milieu of friends and label family, following the precedent of their Extraordinary Renditions ace released over a year ago.

From Kero Kero Bonito’s remarkable 8-bit ghettobass rework of Rock ’N Roll Star - yep, that one - to Thool’s sublime lounge version of Joe Jackson and LXURY’s take on an early Drexciyan bewt, the pure pop kicks come delightfully light-headed and unexpected, pretty much all certain to garner fevered ID requests for the DJs, and even get the shyest wallflowers down on the ‘floor.

We’re talking proper ‘90s nostalgia in AlaskaAlaska’s take on Edwin Collins’ A Girl Like You, and of the acid house variety in Sultan Shakes arabicanised version of AGCG’s evergreen, Oud Ou Ray, and even The Beastie Boys Girls gets a look in courtesy of Eyedress.

But half the fun of Covered In Gloria is identifying those earworms that you know you know, but just can’t place a finger on, as with Bullion’s Friday and Suzanne Kraft’s krautish werk-aut, Nordsee. And while Minor Science’s Heatwave is actually a bit too sweet, we can hardly fault the rest; it’s pretty much a flawless and very worthwhile exercise in refreshing/undressing our collective pop cultural memory banks.