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Album Reviews
Album Review: Various Artists – Temporary Secretary: Mixed by Dixon (Innervisions)
By Paul Vig | Published on Tuesday 13 October 2009
Dixon is one of the better house DJs out there at the moment. It’s possibly his experimentalism – the ability to take a theme and throw it in the mix to create an interesting smorgasbord of sounds – that really marks him out from the rest. Here he sums up some of his recent sets in compo form, mixing and splicing and overlaying the beats. Though, I’m sad to say, with mixed results.
It starts well, with the warmly textured ‘Ongu’ by Icasol and some tribalism from Fever Ray, before heading down the more minimal tribal route with Ame’s TubeBeat overlaid on Bocquet’s ‘Exotique’, which is definitely experimental, if a little disjointed. Then to funky flavours with Jazzanova, blended with Daniel Paul to good effect, before Ewan Pearson’s take on ‘Hazel’ by Junior Boys and onwards to Peter Kruder’s ‘Law of Returns’, a little menacing in feel but with synths that definitely drag you in.
But then there’s some weaker stuff. The Machine’s ‘Fuse’ sadly doesn’t spark, Tidwell’s ‘Watsuii’ takes too much time to build, and Ame’s ‘Setsa’ just isn’t that good. Nor is the ending track by Tokyo Black Star. All of which means that, despite what I said at the start of this review, Dixon only scores high marks here for diversity and variety. As for the actual music, there’s a bit too much navel gazing, and the combinations certainly aren’t as palatable as I hoped. PV
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