K7 レコード& CD

Review: ***B-STOCK: Creasing to outer sleeve & torn spine but otherwise in excellent condition***

Review: Theo Parrish is a world-renowned name in the global Detroit house and techno game, and he's thrown a fascinating curveball as the latest entrant for the acclaimed DJ-Kicks series. Mr. Parrish has gone above and beyond the duties of most invitees - rather than just licensing tracks from his favourite artists and big-name-friends, he's asked his own community from Detroit to each produce their own mixable tracks, exclusively for the comp. What's more, these are hardly established names - they're organic connections to Parrish, not occupying the top layer of attention and recognition. Bits from H-Fusion, Jon Dixon, Donald Lee Roland II, Ian Fink and Raybone Jones all dominate this anarchic new deconstruction of the otherwise exclusivist mix series.

Review: The last few years have really seen Paul Woolford reach the top of his game in many different ways. Be it bowel emptying rave as Special Request, festival baiting piano house tunes or chart topping pop dance crossovers under his own name, the man is proving himself to have a real golden touch. He sure does crank out all these tunes at a prolific rate, too, but you still feel he does everything with meticulous precision. This DJ Kicks is a case in point. It touches on all the many different facets of his sound from glossy and feel good house to early Chicago classics, post-rave dreamscapes to brutal jungle breaks. What a legend.

Review: It's been a while since we last heard from Tosca (three years, in fact), and even longer since they released a record that pricked the consciousness of downtempo dub connoisseurs. Thankfully, Odeon is something of an unlikely return to form. Opening with the atmospheric ambience of "Zur Guten Ambience", Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber move through their entire repertoire of spine-tingling, horizontal sounds. Along the way, they touch on folksy iciness ("What If"), alien dub-house ("Heatwave"), Roxy Music-ish art-pop ("Jayjay"), bluesy dub ("Mexiner") and, most notably at all, post-punk funk-pop ("In My Brain Prinz Eugen"). It is, of course, pretty smooth, but that's all part of their stoned charm.

Review: Whether operating under his own name or the equally familiar Henry Wu alias, Kamaal Williams' next-level musical fusions are always rooted in soul and jazz. Both inspirations come to the fore on his superb contribution to the long running "DJ-Kicks" series, a smooth, atmospheric and ear-catching set that crams 29 scintillating cuts in 80 action-packed minutes. Sprinting between 21st century R&B, jazz-funk, deep house, dancefloor jazz, broken beat, kwaito, dub, drum and bass and off-kilter, impossible to pigeonhole cuts, the musician, producer and DJ manages to both educate and entertain in equal measure. Along the way you'll find plenty of exclusives, including a number of his own previously unreleased productions.