ahbijef, Sep 26, 2006
The lads from Lexicon Avenue have turned in a superbly crafted, deliciously funky mix here that merits frequent revisits even to this day. It was quietly released towards the end of the darkly tribal phase of the Progressive House movement and brought more than a gust of fresh air to that particular genre of underground dance music at just about the time when it was about to sink under its own weight and self–absorption.
While the likes of John Creamer and Stephane K proclaimed with great fanfare that their DJ mixes "connected the dots between progressive, tribal, deep and funky house", and Satoshi Tomiie told us how he connected with audiences by varying his sets in accordance with the changing, substance–influenced moods on his dancefloors, the lads from Lexicon Avenue were, in Nite:Life 12, the only ones who actually made the connection with their audiences' desire for quality dance music which satisfies every craving for pounding, funky beats and late–night edginess that Progressive House was supposed to be about.
And they did so with a lot less self–serving verbosity and a lot more flair than their peers by selecting a relentlessly funky, beats & bass–driven collection of tracks that are no less dark and tribal than the pound–a–penny, mindlessly monotonous fare served up in the name of Progressive House circa 2001 – 2003. In fact, the lads have so much fun on Nite:Life 12 that Creamer, K, Tomiie, et al. all looked positively stilted, in a stick–up–the–behind sort of way, after this mix came out.
A key driver of its success is its refreshingly diverse range of artists/producers/remixers (as opposed to the usual incestuous collection of names that populate commercial releases from labels such as Global Underground, Renaissance, React, Bedrock, and EQ), who represent an even more refreshing diversity of approaches to making funky dance music without fluff. Thrown in among the usual Progressive House suspects (Chab, the lads themselves in various guises, and Bini & Martini) are heavy hitters from other styles of underground dance music such as Jay–J & Chris Lum (West Coast House), Global Communication (Deep House, Ambient Techno, Hip–Hop), and Dizzy & Jado (House). All of this goes to show that the usual suspects and their ilk had no monopoly on the funky progressive goods (quite the opposite, in fact), and it is only to be lamented that these other purveyors of Progressive House haven't taken the time to engage in lateral thinking of the sort that has, triumphantly, resulted in Nite:Life 12.
NRK is a forward–thinking, no–nonsense label in the underground dance music space that has given us a lot of great music from a multiplicity of genres over the years. Many of the mixes in the Nite:Life series (2000 – 2004) are the sort of benchmark releases that make tastemakers everywhere sit up and pay attention. Nite:Life 12 is unmistakably one of these and is well worth tracking down if only to see exactly how Funky Progressive House should be done.
4.4/5 (