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Album Reviews
Album Review: Various Artists – FabricLive.50: dBridge & Instra:mental present Autonomic (Fabric Records)
By Paul Vig | Published on Tuesday 9 February 2010
The Fabric Live series, which aims to capture the sound and feel of the London club’s legendary Friday nights, hits a landmark 50th release, this time headed up by both former Bad Company man dBridge and like-minded thinker Instra:mental, who have together compiled and mixed the album.
They offer up 31 cuts in their allotted time. Unfortunately, rather than showing off the great range of the artists they have chosen, the packed tracklist doesn’t give any track the time to grow and shine. The vibe is slow, a bit soulful and not overly beatsy, running at about the 90bpm mark, but not strictly chillout.
In terms of the two men’s own music which appears in the mix, Instra:mental’s own tracks seem to be better, providing, as they do, some of the highlights of the whole package, in particular his rather lush ‘From The Start’, ‘End Credits’ and ‘Fist’, which conjures up some chilled moods inspired by techno. Other stand out turns include Code 3, who gets tough with ‘Living Proof’, and former drum n basshead ASC’s cut ‘Phobos’ which has a good slant to its beats.
Interesting, yes, but it’s all a bit navel gazing. There are a few nice touches to the mix, but not many, so that it sort of feels like you have been out for a fancy multi-course dinner but still come home hungry. Not what I was expecting at all. Presumably a must have for existing fans of both mixers, but not something that will widen either man’s appeal, I shouldn’t think. PV
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