Original Debut and Standard Setter: Distinctive records release some of the best music out there, the label has been consistenly goodover its lifespan and I'm an avid fan, this was my first encounter with them, while everyone was out producing epic trance DJ Hyper built a breakbeat album, albeit one with a more trancey feel than more recent work, the epic builds and breakdowns make this a great compilation for dancing or just listening. You listened to this and could feel a little more intellectual than the cyberkids with their 4/4 beats and buzzing synth hooks, this album brought the bass up in the mix and made sure there were no cheezy vocals - although there are some Kitsch moments when Shirley Bassey belts out the vocal on 'Shot From a Gun'. I love it, and I still play parts of the vinyl version - in particular the Wafeform remix of Way Out West's "Earth" always finds a moment of relfection in a mix, or the rolling bass and acid bleeps of General Midi's "Automatic" drive the dancefloor a little harder.
Overall Score: 9/10
Sequels Are Never As Good: Following up the original Y3K was never going to be an easy task, especially when most of the tracks from 'The Soundtrack To The Future' were already getting a little bit old by the time the album was released. It disappointed many reviewers on release because of its reliance on old material, which made it feel more like an encore from a DJ runnign out of records, but looking back a couple of years this is less relevant and it still sounds like a great album. And.... it really did end up being the soundtrack to the future - Hyper Stayed with it and has propered with his residency at Bedrock. It's a much darker mix than the first CD, none of the kitsch vocals or silly acid lines found in Y3K, more dark moody synths and ambient noise. My favourite moment is the finaly track - the 'High Velocity' edit of Hybrid's "Snyper" - even more epic that "Finished Symphony" with some nice sweeping strings over energetic synths and cranked up to be a little faster than the original mix. Classic Hybrid.
Overall Score: 7/10
Odd Concept That Can't Fail to Sound Good: So... Hybrid are known for their remixing skills, Moby, BT, Radiohead, Alanis and others have found themselves remixed by the prog breakbeat duo, sometimes at the request of the record label, sometimes just for a laugh. So for a grand concept someone decided to get them to do a mix album containing only Hybrid remixes - take the distinctive Hybrid sound and spread it over a load of other artists music then mix all the tracks into one great homage to hybrid's remixing skills. Since the sound is so similar the mixing was never goind to be a problem, the big deal with this seems to have been the licensing, many of the really interesting Hybrid remixes never made it onto the album - in particular their Alanis Morrisette remix is represented without the Alanis vocal, but in this case that's probably a bonus. All in all it represents an excellent mix, but perhaps a little unimaginitive, the CD is great for people who aren't generally dance music fans, but DJ mix fans may find the similarity a little boring. Now... DJ's should try and pick up the vinyl version for a veritable motherlode of excellent remixes, especially since the originals of many tracks are a lot less interesting.
Overall Score: 6/10
How To Be A DJ God: A 2 cd compilation with one CD covering conventional techno and the other covering electro, while electro is hot at the moment it's the techno mix that I bought the CD for. When this was released a lot of the promotional material emphasized the fact that Dave did this live without the need ot pro-tools or any other software to make the mix sound good. I'd love to see this on video since the mix is nothing short of astonishing, he chops up multple copies of a track, never leaves teh EQ untouched, phases sound together and does it all non stop for 75 minutes. Basically he plays techno the way it's supposed to be played, and despite being busy he never overdoes it - he's that good he scares me. Similarly the electro CD provides fantastic entertainment, with maybe a little more humour, this mix stands up fantasticly alongside most of my braks CD's, but doesn't have the bass presence that I like in my breakbeat. But who cares, this is quite simply one of the most awe inspiring DJ mix CD's I've ever heard - every wannabe DJ should listen to this and realise there's more to DJ'ing than just beatmathcing records - a great example to the younger generation.
Overall Score: 10/10!
Genius Producer Shows Off His DJ Skillz: Mad mix covering so much ground that you can pretty much play this at any party and people will love it, except for the DJ's who will be jealous because they know that they will never be able to do anything as good. Liam Howlett is the producer behind rock star dance act 'The Prodigy' and this mix definately comes from a more rock/rap angle compared with the older Rave sounding Prodigy. It supposedly started as a mix performed for the Radio 1 Show 'The Breezeblock' and after getting so many requests they decided to redo it and release it properly. This CD covers everything from rap to punk to UK indie rock and old school funk, and more impressivly makes it all fit together in ways that were clearly not intended. Possibly the only album that more frenetic than the Dave Clarke CD, but this was put together in a studio - it still remains impressive - 50 tracks in 50 minutes.
Overall Score: 10/10
Copyright 2002 Scott Manley