Raging Slab The Dealer (Tee Pee)
Death By Chocolate self-titled (Jetset)
Bombshell Rocks City Rats & Alleycats (Burning Heart/Sonic Unyon)
Various Return of the Rock Vol. 2 (Attic/Song)
Various Girlfight Soundtrack (Screen Gems/EMI)
Various Rarewerks (Astralwerks/EMI) From Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers through to domestic cats like Q-Burns Abstract Message, Astralwerks has always gone for the mainstream dream-team with obviously good results. Rarewerks is no exception, rounding up unheard tracks from the above-mentioned breaked beats guys, plus remixes and singles from Massive Attack, Primal Scream, Cassius, Air and many other big but good names from the wonderful world of... electronica. Shit, I can't believe I used that word. 8/10 (Chris Hatherill)
Various Nite:life 02: H Foundation (NRK/Fusion III) H Foundation is Halo & Hipp-e, two friends and DJs-turned-producers who've been rocking the rave scene since Hipp-e was living in Denver addicted to Nintendo, and Halo was a burgeoning record junkie/pothead in the Windy City. The dope duo are largely responsible for pioneering the heavily dub influenced "West Coast" sound of house music that put labels like Siesta and Tango on the map, and is currently burning up dancefloors across the planet. This second compilation in NRK's Nite:life series features H Foundation mixing a selection of dub house favourites from labels like Low Pressings, Greyhound and more. 9/10 (Krista)
AK1200 Mixed Live (Moonshine/Koch) Florida's AK1200 travels to San Francisco for this latest edition of Moonshine's Mixed Live series. Joined by Navigator, one of my favourite MCs, he lays down cutting-edge tracks both new (from Digital, Total Science, Bad Company etc.) and classic (remixes of "Lighter" and "Dubplate"). Though Navigator doesn't rock as hard as when he's with London's Freestylers, this remains an excellent example if space aliens ever ask you what a good drum & bass party is like. 8/10 (Chris Hatherill)
Various Dub Infu-sions 1989-1999 (Best Seven/Fusion III)
DJ Food Quadraplex E.P. (Ninja Tune/Outside) Strictly Kev & PC's last album Kaleidoscope was so filling that this platter, recorded at the same time, was left out entirely. It's a meal in itself, in fact, a four-part, self-contained suite. There's plenty of hardware-store voodoo riddims and spookhouse dub shifts, but the operative word here is "glass"--the raw material, sonically, is glass being blown, tapped, stroked (you know, that "singing wineglass" thing that never actually seems to work when I do it) and ultimately busted into bits. Furthermore, there's the titles ("Hour Glass," "Monocle"), the nifty see-thru packaging and of course your own glassy-eyed stare as you get your head around this thing. Likey to replace Billy Joel's Glass Houses in many a Top 10. 9/10 (Rupert Bottenberg) At Tokyo with Fink and Dynamic Syncopation on Thurs., Jan. 25
Samantha MumbaGotta Tell You (Universal)
Christian Marclay/Thurston Moore/Lee RanaldoFuck Shit Up (Les Disques Victo) Half of Sonic Youth joins an experimental DJ on this two-track disc, recorded live at Victoriaville's 1999 musique actuelle festival. Parts of the opening epic (62 minutes!) can be likened to a car crashing while the driver's guts are being gnawed by a wolf whose leg is caught in a blender. Meanwhile, some asshole is having sex with a guitar in the back seat. Fans of songs may prefer the second track's semi-recognizable SY guitars and sampled Dixieland jazz in a bed of feedback. As you wonder whether this is a clever exercise in discordance or just a heinous molestation of musical equipment, the sneaking suspicion that "you had to be there" is confirmed. 5/10 (Lorraine Carpenter) NegrocanMedio Mundo (Deep South/Nice) It's kind of cool that Medio Mundo is also the name of a huge housing block in Montevideo, Uruguay. Apparently, all kinds of poor black and white people have lived there for years, and the location of the block is essential to the processions that take place during Carnival and other festive occasions. Negrocan take their regional sound, Candombe, and back it up with a strong jazz base, as well as Cuban and Brazilian influences. The result is an album that doesn't simply rehash all of this Afro-Brazilian hype, but actually builds on the band's regional interpretation of an immediately international sound. The musicians keep in touch with each other, and the roots of the music. 7.5/10 (Scott C) Hod O'BrienHave Piano... Will Swing! (Fresh Sound/Fusion III) This vastly underappreciated musician begins collecting his old-age pension tomorrow, Jan. 19. This beautifully recorded session, by the best bebop pianist this side of Barry Harris, dates from December of '99. Bassist Tom Warringtion and drummer Paul Kreibich add just-right support on a dozen tracks, a nice mix of standards (including "While My Lady Sleeps") and jazz tunes by the likes of Erroll Garner, Red Garland, Horace Silver and John Coltrane, plus "Hod House," O'Brien's take on a Cole Porter standard. A rare treat! 10/10 (Len Dobbin)
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The great U.S. soul label Stax was the Stones to Motown's Beatles, rougher, rawer and consistently no-frills. Home to Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, Isaac Hayes and Booker T. & the MGs (the Stax house band, in fact)--never to mention the Marlon Perkins of funk, Rufus Thomas--Stax fostered several offshoot labels as well (notably Volt). Between '60 and '75, the lifespan of the Memphis-based operation, their office marquee proudly proclaimed "Soulsville, USA," and who's to contest it? This four-disc box set isn't about chronology, though CD one, "The Hits," does round 'em up as they came, from '60 to '75. The next two go as "Kinda Blue" and "Finger-Snappin' Good," and just root around the warehouse for the good stuff--Sam & Dave, Albert King, Mar-Keys, Bar-Kays and various Staple family configurations. The final CD is "Live!" and the booklet, packed with 64 pages of sharp photos, essays and rare ad art, seals the deal. 10/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)
After being out of the game for a while, Raging Slab have come back home to roost, and this is some serious Southern-fried boogie rock. With all of the weak imitations out there, the Slab really show the young 'un stoner bands just how to do it. Songs like "Double Wide" and "Chasin' the Dragon" showcase the always brilliant slide work of Elsye Steinman, but it's Greg Strzempka's Steve Marriot howl that really makes this sound like you're at California Jam drinking out of a wineskin. If your idea of retro rock is Lenny Kravitz then you really need this now. 8.5/10 (Johnson Cummins)
Rotting teeth and rolls of flab. Thunder thighs and last week's tight slacks. This might be the sad future of Angela Faye Tillett, this new band's Brit-teen singer with a sweet tooth and nostalgia for a time she never saw. To the tune of classic '60s pop--and, occasionally, to no tune at all--this sugary novelty album features lists of pop culture trinkets, historical facts and, well, sweets. A trio of retro soundtrack covers, including the theme from The Singing Nun, are the only tracks to leave this mould (somewhat). This is a delightful, upbeat little album. Hopefully the band will survive the concept. 8.5/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)
These punker Swedes have a lot to live up to after last year's excellent debut, but thankfully their old-school punk sensibility hasn't dulled at all. There's still the crowd chanting "oi!" during every chorus and the guitars still chug away but hell, if it ain't broke... Bombshell's real talent is that they know how to write a really catchy ditty à la early Social D or the Clash. These musical razor blades are guaranteed to pull you by the ear and not let go until long after this 40-minute punkfest has ended. 8/10 (Johnson Cummins)
If you'll recall, I gave Vol. 1 a dismal review, stating the lack of quality and the hope that Vol. 2 would make up for it. Fortunately there are a half-dozen bright spots in this otherwise despicable assortment of sonic insults. Among them are Deftones' beautifully powerful and edgy acoustic version of "Change (In the House of Flies)." Alice In Chains live on in a band called Fuel, (Hed) Planet Earth are savagely pissed, Soulfly continues that energy with "Back to the Primitive," and Glassjaw blast testosterone into your cerebellum. We are also given a haunting, glossy Marilyn Manson track snatched from a live show and finally, this good cop/bad cop comp is nicely rooted with Type O Negative's "12 Black Rainbows." The other eight bands aren't worth mentioning. 6/10 (Lateef Martin)
First you get a great movie that involves human drama, triumph of the spirit, and one super-inspiring story. Next you get a bunch of big names in hip hop and R&B to contribute a slew of half-assed songs that come nowhere near capturing the strength of the film. You will then have the soundtrack for Girlfight. You'd think that the powers that be would get behind a great movie with some equally great music, but no. Instead, we get shitty tracks from the "born-again" Santana and all kinds of throwaway filler from Dilated Peoples to Ness and the dreaded "Ghetto Mambo." Is the true movie soundtrack really dead in 2001? Am I expecting too much? Probably. 5/10 (Scott C)
Here's a look at the way dub science has impacted European club sounds over the last 10. Nothing here is as raw and disorienting, as literally deranged, as Jamaican dub at its finest, but that's not the idea. Compiled by Werner Geier of Germany's ultra-swank Sonar Kollektiv, the CD finds the chaos of dub and the smooth contours of icy Euro-dance reaching an understanding. From durable ditties by Renegade Soundwave and Norman Cook's Beats International up to the designer funk of Kruder & Dorfmeister and Fila Brazilia, it's a good haul, all in all in all in all (djsh-djsh-djsh-djsh). 7.5/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)
This latest teen ingenue is more than she seems. True lead single "Gotta Tell You" is giving Christina and Britney some warm competition. But elsewhere, Mumba, who's got that whole black-Irish thing going on, lets the funk out. On "Body II Body" she bites vintage David Bowie to get her groove on. And tracks like "Feelin' Is Right" and "What's it Gonna Be" are the kind of infectious pop that radio lives for. Mumba just might escape the teen-pop curse after all. 7/10 (Gerard Dee)