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Various - Cream Live Two - 09-Jul-09 09:03 AM
The first 15 tracks of CD3 constitute a very good DJ mix by The Psychonauts, with brilliant scratching and skillful sticking together of mostly Mo Wax breaks & beats. Its slightly better than their rather rushed Time Machine mix, though not as good as their longer Radio One Essential Mix.

The mix quickly flits from one track to the next in the trademark cut & paste style of The Psychonauts, resulting in a (mostly) high energy mix that maintains interest throughout, but (unlike with Time Machine) not so fast as to prevent the listener from getting into the individual songs. Whilst featuring great drums, the actual songs in the mix are not that amazing in themselves, but its the WAY these guys use four turntables to bring the best out of them that is so impressive. The scratching is very rhythmical and diverse, never getting monotonous or overbearing in the way that a lot of scratch DJs can be, and perfectly complementing the songs over which they appear.

I may be wrong, but I think James Lavelles contribution to the mix is restricted to tracks 16 - 19, boring songs that have here been overplayed and very averagely stuck together. Its certainly a change of style, both musically and DJing, that provides a disappointing end to an otherwise highly innovative mix of breaks, beats and scratching.

Quantic - The 5th Exotic - 08-Apr-09 12:12 PM
With beats ranging from laidback trip-hop to drum & bassey big beat, there is enough variety of drum here to keep this instrumental album of quirky electronica interesting.

Similar in style to Mr. Scruff (though more adventurous), DJ Shadow (though more leftfield), and Deadly Avenger (though less serious), this album could perhaps be best described as intelligent big-beat.

Whilst the good songsmanship remains consistent throughout, there are no standout hits to make this album anything more than just great background music. Perhaps having a vocalist on the odd song would have dragged this up to the level of a Moon Safari or Endtroducing.

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Hip Hop Forever III - 09-Nov-08 04:36 AM
Loads of strong, jazzy tracks here, mostly from hip-hops golden age - Gang Starr, Black Sheep, Main Source, Pharcyde, A Tribe Called Quest. Some of the tracks arent so strong, which is why this mix doesnt get top marks, but Jazzy intersperses them well with stronger tracks so the mix never gets too dull. Also, its much stronger than JJs previous mix (Hip-Hop Forever 2), both in terms of having stronger, catchier tracks and better, more innovative turntablism.

This is an essential mix for anyone into hip-hop or turntablism. Jazzy Jeff specialises in cutting back and forth between 2 copies of the same record, usually so as to extend and, in some cases completely transform the introduction of the track, and this always involves some truly fantastic scratching. Both the scratching and cutting breath new life into these tracks and sometimes its so original that it seems Jazzy Jeff is doing a live remix of the track.

A few occasions this turntablism doesnt add so much musically and it feels like posturing for the sake of showing off, rather than for the sake of improving the music (eg on Award Tour by ATBQ), but usually the turntablism is amazing musically as well as technically. This is best exemplified on the penultimate track, Looking at The Front Door by Main Source. Jazzy Jeff has taken arguably the best hip-hop track ever made and improved it by extending the intro with with unbelievable beat-juggling that transforms the intro beats into something fresh, then extending the opening chords with some fantastic scratching and repeating. This track has some of the best turntablism, musical intelligence and innovation I have ever heard, and for this reason alone is worth owning the album.

PS. The compilation also features a CD of unmixed tracks, some of which are quite hard to find now in CD format (eg the aforementioned Main Source track).

DJ LBR - French Connection Vol. 4 - 04-Mar-08 09:41 AM
Ignore the tracklisting, there are essentially 2 different tracks on this record and none are clean!

A1 and A2 are identical, both slick mash-ups of Missy Elliots Get Your Freak On, One Minute Man, and Mary J Bliges - Family Affair. Fatman Scoop can be heard throughout getting very excited about the prospect of real live bitches throwing their hands up.

B1, B2, B3 & B4 are identical acapellas of a music history sermon given by Stik E of Stik E & The Hoods Shake What Ya Mama Gave Ya fame, with the exception that B2 and B4 are accompanied by a gale force wind sound effect for added drama.

Nirvana - With The Lights Out - 05-Feb-08 09:19 AM
The solo acoustic track Where Did You Sleep Last Night is far better than the version you can find on the Unplugged in New York cd / dvd - its really good. Verse Chorus Verse, D-7 and Sappy are quality, original tracks, ie not on other official releases and difficult to find elsewhere.

However, the remaining 57 cd tracks are either unheard skits or demo / live versions of stuff you can find in far better musical form on other official releases. So basically, 4 out of the 61 audio tracks here are original or worth having in their own right!!

The DVD is much like the cds, early rare stuff of variable and often poor sound quality. For a much better live Nirvana video / DVD, get Live Tonight, Sold Out; From the Muddy Banks of the Wiskaw is a much better quality live cd aswell.

The booklet is an in-depth, good read and the packaging is pretty.

In summary, I would say this is for Nirvana obsessives only, who will listen to it a few times and then archive it away happy in the knowledge that they have heard everything the band ever did. However, try to get this for under a tenner, as there is way too much filler here to justify paying any more.

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