Various - The Rebirth Of Cool Vol. 1

The Rebirth Of Cool was at the time when it was released a very fresh series. Now, it is History.
It is relatively easy to make good compilation albums in retrospect and for that Mastercuts is a great example. The people behind the Rebirth Of Cool series were completely aware that they were contributing for the defenition of something and in a way shaping it by contextualizing the music. "The nineties will be the decade of a jazz thing, welcome to the story so far..." so starts the introduction of the first volume. Notice a certain assertiveness? Well, all seven volumes (and particularly the first three) have that quality, they almost feel like statements.
This is not a tedious series in any way. The tracks were carefully chosen and they really cover some of the most interesting scenes of the early nineties.

Rebirth of Cool is a very well picked & stylish collection of acid jazz/ jazzdance/ hip hop at first, expanding into trip hop, latin grooves, trip hop & jungle on later releases. Most tracks compiled by dj Patrick Forge of Da Lata fame. The original uk series span 7 volumes from 1991 to 1998.
There are considerable differences between the uk & us versions. The uk catalogue nrs always start with: brcd (cd) or brlp (vinyl).
This canadian release (probaply usa too) is a bit of a mishmash of the firts 2 uk volumes. The following usa versions 2 & 3 are actually stripped down versions of uk volumes 3 & 4.
To make things worse there are also different french releases (rebirth TWO instead of TOO) & there are a few other tracks on some of the vinyl releases.
All volumes are worthwhile additions to the genre, but
depending on your degree of addiction it's either a collectors dream or nightmare!