I'm a sucker for anything to do with Central Asia — been there, got the T-shirt etc — so anything titled Songs From The Silk Road is likely to appeal. This new collection from Banco de Gaia (aka British DJ and eclectic electronic wizard Toby Marks) promotes itself as a cross-pollination of house and world music. I'll admit right here of having a certain wariness of anything labeled house/dance music, but overall Banco de Gaia seem to get things about right — effectively this is beats with global coloring, electronica with exotic sampling.

Farewell Ferengistan, the track that kicks off this compilation of nearly 20 years of hits and remixes, has a vaguely Persian feel to it; "Ferengistan" being a name dubbed for the strange country that Westerners (ferengi) hail from. "Last Train to Lhasa," which was recorded live at the Glastonbury Festival back in 1995 (long before there actually was a train to Lhasa) — features sampled Tibetan vocals and what sounds suspiciously like steam trains. "Sheesha," which follows, is even earlier, dating from 1994, and precociously claims inspiration from Bach, JFK and a bit of William Burroughs, although the proximity of the Silk Road seems rather distant. "Glove Puppet (Dreadzone Remix)" is a remix of "Igizeh," itself a re-recording of an earlier dub-flavored instrumental with the addition of slightly anguished vocals by Jennifer Folker. "Not in my Name" from 2004 gets more political; inspired by the Iraqi invasion in 2003, it's noisier and more aggressive than anything else here and starts with a heavy dub bass line and sampled voices of war before segueing into a more elegiac Celtic-sounding groove.

All in all, this is a pretty good collection of remixes for those who like their music fashioned by computer. Don't take the "Silk Road" tag too seriously though.