Various Artists - Dimension Mix

With parents cramming commercial dreck like the Wiggles into kids’ ears these days, it’s quite easy to forget that children’s music wasn’t always indissociable with descriptors like "subpar" or "downright obnoxious." The enduring appeal of the great Sesame Street and Schoolhouse Rock recordings that graced the 70’s and 80’s are testament to this. Before either let fly a single note, however, there was Dimension 5 Records. Founded in 1963 by Canadian music pioneer Bruce Haack and educator and dance teacher Esther Nelson, Dimension 5 released eleven albums over the course of thirteen years purportedly targeting younger audiences. Purportedly, because while some of Haack and Nelson’s output was basic fare about dancing or the lives of ants, spiders, and catfish, they also branched out into more recondite subjects like meditation, astral projection, and ayurveda; issues that could be easily misconstrued as drug-induced hallucinations rather than exercises in intellect or imagination. Whatever the nature of their subject matter, one thing was beyond doubt; the music was damn fun. Dimension Mix is a collection of eighteen remixes culled from the Dimension 5 corpus, with part of the proceeds going to autism charities. It oscillates between space-age pop and (slightly) more standard rock and bluegrass numbers, all of which retain the boundless energy and sense of wide-eyed discovery that pervaded the originals. Beck kicks off the fun with the goofy optimism of “Funky L’il Song,” playfully switching his delivery from deadpan to falsetto to what I can only imagine is his best Michael McDonald impression. Stereolab follows with the bubble, whir, and hum of their own peculiar brand of electronica on “Mudra,” and Fantastic Plastic Machine blends “OK Robot” with other Haack tunes on “I’m Bruce” into an irresistibly dancey melange of manic neon sound. Apples in Stereo, Eels, and Irving contribute as well, as does longtime Haack collaborator Chris Kachulis, who adds “Listen,” an experimental synth-piece he co-wrote with Bruce Haack. But the album reaches its true apex with DJ Me DJ You’s “Soul Transportation,” five minutes of far-out space-funk introducing the otherworldliness of meditation that is as transcendental as its title suggests. There are no bad tracks here, though, only degrees of excellence. It’s that sustained excellence that begs the question: How criminal is it that Haack’s genius is still largely unrecognized? Almost twenty years after his death from heart failure, Haack’s name is still mired in relative obscurity, his records prized mainly by DJ’s, novelty collectors, and electronic music historians. The man deserves better than this. Here’s hoping that this album will aid his reputation as much as the autism charities it’s intended to benefit. [www.eeniemeenie.com]