Warmth is pure Speed vibes. Trax hit the nail on the head with this one. Kudos to Paradox for releasing this. Proper rolling classic layered funk breaks + lush pads + bouncing 808s and a crooning vocal sample to die for. When the piano riff comes real late in the tune on the rollout your stomach will drop with euphoria. This is yet another example from the Paradox camp that the classic mid 90s drum and bass basics can be revisted over and over again (with proper attention to detail) and still bear the fruit of musical perfection.

Nebula, you have smacked me in the face with Chords of Sorrow. What a gem this is! It's pure 1996 ethic drum and bass at 2008 tempo and production standards. Pitch it down to -2 and you can happily play this next to your Source Direct and Photek records. The beat choppage is clean and crisp. The beats have perfect weight. You can play this along with anything produced today. Structurally there are suprises and twists all the way through. It doesn't follow a predictable pattern (like most d & b in 2008) but it still manages to be DJ friendly. It peaks and troughs structurally and emotionally but it's never forced or just for gimmick. This is a song. The mood changes several times with absolute purpose. Yeah, it's 100% retro, but to be quite blunt the overall quality of this plate shames a lot of Nebula's beat nazi contemporaries into afterthoughts. This is perfectly crafted music that escapes the convention of genre. I want more.

This is actually worth getting because it features Small Truths and Cumulmus which were not otherwise released. For some reason Blu Mar Ten are not fond of those tracks and are said to have not been in favor of their release. Chris Marigold can suck it though because Small Truths is the real deal. I remember Slipmaster J playing it when he was tagging along on the Progression Sessions tour in 98 with Blame and Bukem. I crapped my underwear while listening to that swelling bassline on a club rig. The rest of the tunes fans should already own in some other superior format. If you do not then punch yourself in the face.

MC Manic really impressed me on this mix. Most MC's are weak and usually take away from the music rather than complement. But Manic realy nails it from start to finish here. In some cases, like the Bud remix of Jebar, Manic even makes the tune better. I bought that 12" with memories of this mix in mind and then when I got it home and Manic was nowhere to be found the tune fell flat on me. Now the plate is collecting dust on my shelf. On the DJ side Element gets respect for that excellent block of tunes from Chain Smoker to No Way to Eastern Organic. Chain Smoker and No Way had me combing new release lists for a few weeks after I heard this. Then getting No Way and Clarity on the same plate when it did come out was a bonus. Clarity has become one of those tunes that will never leave my bag. Clarity = B A S S L I N E F R O M T H E G O D S.

I'd love to hear more from MC Manic.

If you're seeking this 12" just for the Nookie remix you're probably better off just tracking down the Promised Land 3 LP. The pressing on this 12" isn't any better than the LP version and the other two versions are only listenable at best. If the Nookie cut had gotten a full side on this or if there had been an acapella then it would be a must buy for any lover of deep drum and bass. But that isn't the case. With the Promised Land 3 LP you'll end up with many more fantastic exclusives from a bygone era of beautiful mystic drum and bass to go along with this amazing Nookie remix.

This is an absolutely perfect 12" from Dev Paradox.

On the Rare Earth side Dev dons his deeper Alaska pseudonym for a beautiful cosmic shuffler. Structurally this is the more straightforward and DJ friendly of the two tracks so there's more room to focus on the beauty of the textures and the ethereal key lead. Despite the subtlety you can tell full effort went into the drums. The programming of the fills is characteristically top notch for the master of sampled funk breaks.

I Get a Kick Back is the more unorthodox half of the 12" with Paradox taking this side to the darker and dirtier side of funk. The Kick Back break has so much swing on the tail of the bars that it comes off as sounding almost experimental when compared with most contemporary drum and bass. Therein is the beauty, though. Take it out of the context of drum and bass and you have a something that still stands firmly on its own. It's a brilliant homage to the classic funk it was sampled from.

This yet another case of an absolutely blinding tune d&b tune limited by an MC yapping all over it. Five Alive gives a decent performance but doesn't really add anything to the track. If anything he holds the whole package back as I find myself tuning him out every time I put this on. If this had been an instrumental it would have been a perfect set starter that I could use to play out. The buildup is beautiful. When it gets going the groove is funky and oozing with vibe. But with the vocal it's limited to use as an occasional head-nodder when it pops up in my iPod.

The pressing on this LP is very low and thin. Gains need to be pushed almost all the way up to play along with most +6DB dance vinyl. In the age of Serato and Final Scratch I would recommend buying the CD version and playing the far better mastered CD tracks. Quality wise though, this LP features some FANTASTIC rare music from Nookie that you can't find anywhere else (other than the CD version of this). But if you're a hardcore Nookie fan that can't live without the vinyl then you MUST own this. This is not a release for casual collectors or half-assed d

A bit slow tempo wise for mixing in to the average house set, the A-Side is a bona fide classic with the Seba/Forme half of Sunday Brunch dominating the production on Midsummer Night. A little known fact is that this track was initially offered to LTJ Bukem for the Earth series. In a not so uncommon mental lapse, Bukem and Good Looking passed on the opportunity and the gem surfaced on Svek. Seba himself performs the quote in the introduction, while Seba's sister sings the main chorus. His sister also makes a brief appearance on Seba's "Valley of the Moomins" released on Good Looking.

This is the kind of record that people would trade their firstborn for. It's easily the seminal release on 720 if not one of the greatest of all time for the genre. On Expressions Odyssey not only set the tone for the label but he set the benchmark for quality and innovation. The interplay between the arpeggio and the chords is of the highest arrangement. The mix down is flawless. The weight of the percussion is perfect. The atmosphere is thick. You MUST hear this tune live to appreciate the subtlety of every little detail down to the tambourine work. THEN, as if the a-side is not enough Odyssey slips in “Ritual”, one of the freshest tribal drum and bass tunes I've ever heard, on the b-side. Deep Blue was so taken he remixed it for the flip of Odyssey's Object. Again, the vibe is so thick on "Ritual" that if you close your eyes and listen you can feel the humidity of the rainforest floor. It is a complete shame that drum and bass of this class and caliber would not be picked up by a drum and bass distributor in the year 2005.