While I agree with the above review by pseudorob in that the "self-promotional" tracklisting did initially deter me from buying this, I was bought this as a gift this year (2007) and I let it play in the background while doing some work...

I had let all those preconceptions disappear and was not looking at the tracklist as the sounds washed over me, and I really enjoyed the trip. Both discs offer something that is totally unique to Mr Lavelle: a kind of crossover sound of Indie/Dance that fuses a lot of elements of these genres into his own unique formula. And here he does so with a lot more personality than with GU 23 (Barcelona), which could be rather "grey" at times, if you like.

It's a solid breaks-based mix basically, 4/5 from me - and while one could look at this mix as a "vehicle of self-promotion" (rather cynically as I did before listening), I now consider it to be a masterpiece: of him pulling out a selection of diverse records and programming them, knitting them together by his own productions to make something totally unique.

This is a disgrace.

I've seen James Lavelle several times live and he always delivers an interesting, eclectic and boundary-crossing mix, well reflected by his Fabric Live 01 effort. From that promising start there has been a steady decline which has been bitterly disappointing.

For mine, his subsequent mix (GU:Barcelona) was a moderate disappointment - solid track selection but nothing interesting or inspiring about it. Then we get GU:Romania - less a mix than a shameless vehicle to promote his own label, material and remixes.

Disturbingly, this is becoming all too common in mixes these days. The term 'sell-out' comes to mind...

This was a GREAT Global Underground CD, however, I am a little dissapointed with the amount of James Lavelle productions on it. I'm sure he had more then just these in his record box.

The transition out of the first track was pretty weird, but other then that, a solid comp. Not the best Global Underground by far, but not the worst either.

Definately some good stuff on here. I don't think it really reflects James' sets that well.