Various: Life Beyond Mars. Bowie Covered (Border)

The ever-increasing pile of tribute albums/covers is so high it is starting to topple under its own weight. Just last week Elsewhere offered the amusing lounge-sweet versions of heavy metal by Hellsongs.
Bowie has always been ripe for covers and there have been any number of such projects already: the point of difference here is the obscurity of the bands (only Au Revior Simone, Kelley Polar and Carl Craig mean anything to me) and their electronica take on things.
Their disposition to electrobeat means much of the material comes from Bowie music already in that zone (Loving the Alien, Ashes to Ashes, Sound and Vision, Golden Years etc).
The result is an album that often sounds quaintly dated (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark fans could like this) and suffers the usual tribute album problem of being hit and miss. The best are those who actually leave Bowie behind, such as free-jazzers The Thing who deconstruct Life on Mars into what sounds like radio static, a plucked acoustic bass and the melody barely on the radar.
Those who play a straight bat -- always emotionally distant although not all the Bowie songs here were like that originally -- are less successful.
But with acts from as far afield as Detroit, Berlin and Japan you cannot deny the influence of David Bowie (aged 61!)
I will be adding it to that precarious pile, can't see it will come out much.

If ever.