Prodigy* - The Dirtchamber Sessions Volume One

Obviously 'Radio Babylon' is by MBM but the bassline was copied by the Future Sound of London on 'Papua New Guinea' (and they took some of the vocals from 'Dawn Of The Iconoclast' by Dead Can Dance too).

Actually, thinking of Liam Howlett's influences again and listening to the full version of 'Radio Babylon', it sounds like The Prodigy used the fuzzy bassline sound for 'Break & Enter' and the dry breakbeat loop for 'Charly'!

Actually, the "FSoL-sampled Radio Babylon" is not FSOL, but Meat Beat Manifesto. Wooo! All right!

But I have to admit, never been much of a Prodigy fan, but I am one of those people in the "older generation" who got most of the tracks on this album when they were first released, and Liam did an amazing job of mixing them all together, and giving them just a bit more spice.

I only bought this album recently when I found one going cheap, I hadn't got it previously because I'd assumed - with it's gritty Fat of the Land type graphics and no tracklist on the case - that it was a basic mix-CD of new tracks similar to The Prodigy's late-nineties releases. Instead it turns out to be a wicked retrospective megamix encompassing rock, punk, indie, Chem Bros breaks, funk and loads of old skool hip-hop and electro - three decades of Liam Howlett's influences, including the Ultramagnetic MC's track that provided the line "smack my bitch up"!

Coldcut, Grandmaster Flash and Double Dee & Steinski are all cited by Howlett amongst his inspirations for this mix and the "cut & paste" audio-collage style and eclecticism of 70 Minutes of Madness, Adventures... and the original Lessons are quite evident here. For example, of the eight indexed tracks on the CD I think my favourite is track 4 which uses an early Warp tune, a seminal rave anthem from The KLF, bits of a trio of Frankie Bones tracks, the FSoL-sampled Radio Babylon and literally just a couple of seconds each of classics Rockit and The 900 Number before ending with the Propellerheads with the Beastie Boys dropped over the top, all in just eight minutes.

...and so the (organized) chaos continues! Overall there are around fifty tracks used in as many minutes, some playing for a minute or two while others make much briefer appearances. I'd have liked to hear more than a few seconds of personal favourites Rockit and The Humpty Dance but on the whole the cleverly planned megamix format and novel ingredients make for really interesting and entertaining listening.

Don't go expecting any Prodigy sounds here (well, apart from Poison which is sampled.) What you'll hear instead is a huge range of beats and breaks, plus many vocal samples. Due to the high number of tracks it does jump around a lot but I feel this is the best way to go about it.

As noticable in the tracklisting it is mostly b-boy and hip-hop sounds but is never really "raw" sounding as there are always baselines etc being sampled to give it a real bouncy feel.

Highly recommended for both those who would already know the tracks (due to their age) but also for those with an interest in phat basslines.

After waiting for a month for virgin to order the damn cd i ended up getting it from MVC, when i got home i immediatly put the bass up and cracked the windows open, the cd is great. The main downside i found is the problem with me having the soulwax album (2 many Dj's) which is much much better. This album is of a more breaks genre to the soulwax album which is rock influenced, but hey thats my preferance so if ya like a more B-Boy stylee then buy this album, you won't be dissapointed!

Great CD! Guaranteed to please everyone in the car. I love the way Liam takes you on a trip through every musical genre. Highly recommended!