What would lead any artist to hand over their pride and joy of a surefire chart hit to the Orb? After all, what's Dr. Alex Paterson known for if not elongating three-minute pop gems into 39-minute ambient meditations? Nonetheless, artists continue to trust Paterson with their radio-friendliness rather than going the obvious route and laying the cash down on Moby. Now, the two-disc compilation of Orb remixes, Auntie Aubrey's Excursions Beyond the Call of Duty, Part 2, offers the results of Paterson's work over the years, demonstrating the man's strengths and weaknesses with utter clarity.

Dr. Alex's wayward Urban Spacemen guise is paraded on his "Depths of an Ocean Lovemix" of Pato Banton's lo-cal reggae single, "Beams of Light." He quickly dispenses with the form of Banton's original creation. In a mass of distorted echoes, Banton's voice diminishes, replaced by an immense tribal rhythm. Snippets of voices and birdsong pierce through the drums until a vast cloud of ambience indiscriminately cloaks everything around it. As the ambience recedes, a harpsichord is left to trill for the remaining minutes. The mix, released in 1992, displays some similarity to the Orb's own "Towers of Dub" and the tranquil mid-section of their "Blue Room."

In 1992, longtime Orb associate Steve Hillage (aka System 7) invited Alex to rework his "Miracle" into a deep throb similar to "Perpetual Dawn." Paterson added bright Italo-House piano chords and an early Production House-style breakbeat to the track, and in an instant, a dancefloor staple was born. The version of Can's "Halleluwah" included here originally appeared on Mute Records' 1997 Can remix record, Sacrilege. But where Can's version brimmed with urgency, the Orb's recasting is a drifting fog. And it's no more successful than Spirit Feel's attempt to cover the track in 1995. However, no one can quibble over the club-readiness of the retooled version of the Grid's "Crystal Clear." Alex rips up the pop-dance of the original, and turns it into an ecstatically dancing Edgar Froese cyborg sequencer workout.

The Orb's "Beach Blanket Bimboland" mix of Meat Beat Manifesto's classic "Radio Babylon" links back to the epic mixes that make up the first part of the Excursions series. Though trimmed by a minute or so from the running length of the version on MBM's Original Fire, none of the bass-heavy insistence of the mix is compromised. Alex has preserved the signature elements of the track (the deep bass, nicked from the Future Sound of London's "Papua New Guinea," and Jack Danger's unmistakable beats) and let them roll into new terrain. This track rivals the remix of Material's "Mantra" included on Excursions Part One in sheer mastery of form and studio technique.

But Dr. Alex is human and fallible. Not every track he remixes should be part of a masterclass. As dodgy as the Pato Banton cut was, Alex's remix of Lisa Stansfield's syrupy, smutty "Time to Make You Mine" realizes the unmitigated slapdash dreck of remixing for cash alone. Somewhat to his credit, Paterson doesn't alter the schmaltzy soft-core pillow talk one jot, instead constantly reminding us how dreadful this singer and this song is. Here, he simply beefs up the beats a few notches and lets the tape roll for the ten minutes it takes him to count the wad of cash he's netted.

The second disc of Excursions Beyond the Call of Duty, Part 2 archives some very early and very dated tunes ("O Je Suis Seul" by West India Company and "Money" by Fischermans Friend). But don't stay with them too long-- they're embarrassingly simple and clod-hopping. Your time is better spent admiring the homage and meeting of styles that marks out the remix of Richard Wright's "Runaway." Paterson has never made a secret of his admiration for Wright's band, Pink Floyd. The remix of a tune off Wright's 1996 album, Broken China, is Alex's deferential 14-minute bow to an avatar of prog.

Excursions Beyond the Call of Duty, Part 2 suffers from a fragmentation and inconsistency that never once marred the series' first installation. Where Part 1 stuck to the oceanically dubby and dense laying of sounds that makes each Orb album a continually rewarding listen, Part 2 splices each track to the next with snippets of "Goon Show"-like dialogues. These tiresome and unnecessary excerpts hinder proceedings. Dr. Alex has always wanted to inject some levity into his records, but this constant cardboard goofiness is simply not amusing. Still, how Paterson can, in the main, take a dull song and dissolve the distinctions between mere product and surreal art remains fascinating. And if that isn't a reason to implore him to remix your next single, I don't know what is.

-Paul Cooper