A hole in the wall opened up and Kid Loco came tumbling out. For that, we can thank Yellow Productions, the UK- based electronic label that brought up Dimitri from Paris. Jean-Yves Prieur, aka Kid Loco, has been putting in his time as a remixer, especially over the past year. He's shown up with excellent re- arrangements of songs by the High Llamas, the Pastels, Cornelius, Mogwai, and Takako Minekawa. Naturally, his stateside debut, the specially- priced Prelude to a Grand Love Story EP, sparks a bit of curiosity.

The shitty thing is, only two of the nine tracks on the EP appear in their original incarnations. The opening track, "She's My Lover," blends the new age-ish vibe of a sitar-less Talvin Singh with the spaced- out psychedelics DJ Shadow dished up on UNKLE's Psyence Fiction. Later, there's "Sister Curare," whose starry atmosphere, skull- rattling beats, and jazzy piano'll get you reminiscing about the darker Ninja Tune stuff from '95-'97. Also included is the "Original Radio Edit" of "Love Me Sweet," a typically folky but endearing French ballad featuring the girlish, whispery vocals of Katrina Mitchell.

The rest of the disc is comprised of various remixes of these and other Kid Loco tracks. Saint Etienne's version of "Love Me Sweet" is a slightly extended take on Loco's radio edit, but it's stripped down and minimal instead of orchestrated and airy. Jim O'Rourke's spin on the song incorporates discordant electronic noodling before pulling the timeless "fakeout" ending. The track then veers off in an entirely different direction as O'Rourke adds a mid-song ambient noise collage and a highly melodic mix of looped acoustic guitars. Tommy Hools' remix of "Love Me Sweet," however, is completely half-assed, bordering on rude. Hools keeps the original song structure intact, but sucks all the creativity out, throwing in a sludgy hip-hop rhythm track and a boring, repetitive piano line.

Bang Bang recreate "She's My Lover," mixing in an obvious sitar, removing the song's vocal track, upping the reverb and adding their own sound effects-- in the end, it sounds like a slightly altered version of the original that is, if anything, more organic than Loco's creation. This leaves us with two mixes of "Relaxin' with Cherry," a song I've never heard in its standard form. Let me suffice to say that the Gak Sato Pre-Echo Mix beats the crap out of the Dimitri from Paris and Bibi remix.

As the title suggests, this record's a prelude to A Grand Love Story, Kid Loco's Atlantic Records full- length debut. It's just too bad we don't get to hear more of his work on this EP. But despite its general hit- and- miss tendencies, Loco's untouched pieces, along with the Gak Sato mix of "Relaxin' with Cherry" and the O'Rourke mix of "Love Me Sweet" make Prelude worth the special price.

-Ryan Schreiber