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" Whispers of Elton John handing over his master tapes to Aussie dance duo Pnau for a remix album began in 2008, shortly after he signed them to his Sony subsidiary. The pair - one of whom also heads up Empire of the Sun - have yet to make significant waves in the UK after last year&amp;#039;s Soft Universe went frustratingly unappreciated; though it was likely in part due to the level of work involved on this project. Reworking Elton&amp;#039;s catalogue between 1970 and 1976 is no mean feat. It&amp;#039;s a period which saw him release ten albums that featured the likes of &amp;#039;Your Song&amp;#039; and signature hit &amp;#039;Rocket Man&amp;#039;. Pnau have done well to avoid the classics and opt mostly for lesser-known songs, though you only need listen to the Balearic-disco opener &amp;#039;Good Morning to the Night&amp;#039; - which includes elements of &amp;#039;Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters&amp;#039; among seven other tracks - to realise they&amp;#039;ve far from taken the easy path. Each number contains slivers of up to nine songs and refashions them almost to beyond recognition. &amp;#039;Sad&amp;#039; stitches together four tracks including the backing vocal from &amp;#039;Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word&amp;#039; to form a wistful dancefloor number with a vintage summer quality, &amp;#039;Black Icy Stare is a brilliant piece of bouncy retro-funk, while &amp;#039;Telegraph to the Afterlife&amp;#039; wanders into slo-mo psychedelia with wonderfully eerie results.  The experimenting reaches its most complex on &amp;#039;Phoenix&amp;#039;, a nine-track megamix which, despite the painstaking cutting and blending involved, includes a chorus that wouldn&amp;#039;t sound out of place in the upper echelons of today&amp;#039;s charts. The result not only succeeds in hauling some of Elton&amp;#039;s best back into relevancy, but also works as a spectacular reimagining of those that deserved more first time out.    Tracks to download: &amp;#039;Good Morning to the Night&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Black Icy Stare&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Telegraph to the Afterlife&amp;#039; If you like this, you&amp;#039;ll like: Empire of the Sun, Sound of Arrows, Penguin Prison Watch the &amp;#039;Sad&amp;#039; music video below:       "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/album-reviews/review/a393574/elton-vs-pnau-good-morning-to-the-night-album-review/>