Articles
2015 Top 10s & 20s
Roomful Of Teeth

Albums
0
David Arend
Artificial Intelligence
Nimrod Borenstein
Randal Collier-Ford
Deadbeat
Julien Demoulin
Denki Udon
R. Nathaniel Dett
Dwiki Dharmawan
Yair Etziony
Marina Fages
Francesco Di Fiore
Flowers for Bodysnatchers
From the Mouth of the Sun
Goldmund
Markus Guentner
Momenta Quartet
Music Komite
North Atlantic Explorers
Ontal
Prequel Tapes
Saffronkeira
Slivovitz
Alessandro Stella
Subheim
Swarm Intelligence
Robert Scott Thompson
Triac
Trigg & Gusset
Aino Tytti
Andy Vaz
We Mythical Kings
Sebastian Zangar

Compilations / Mixes / Remixes / Reissues
Dub Phizix
Stacey Pullen
Replicants
A Simple Procedure
Tour De Traum X

EPs / Cassettes / DVDs / Mini-Albums / Singles
Ant'lrd
Big Phone
Great Panoptique Winter
Hydro
Mtwn
Mute Forest
Selaroda
Thee Koukouvaya
Joshua Van Tassel

Dub Phizix: fabriclive 84
fabric

Dub Phizix's fabric mix sounds pretty much exactly as you'd expect—though that shouldn't be construed as disappointment. On the contrary, the forty-track mix offers as comprehensive a travelogue through grime, drum'n'bass, ragga, jungle, and other bass music-related forms as any listener could possibly desire. With a discography listing releases on Exit, Soul:R, Samurai Music, Dispatch, Ingredients, and his own SenkaSonic, the Manchester producer, born George Ovens, brings no small amount of experience to the mix, which boasts twenty-two previously unreleased cuts (twelve of them Dub Phizix's own) and collabs with DRS, Skeptical, Xtrah, Chimpo, and Strategy. Though Dub Phizix and DRS ease the listener in with the understated elegance of “Break the Chains,” switch-ups occur rapidly thereafter, with almost every one of the tracks sticking around for only a minute or two before the channel changes.

Yet while the pace is head-spinning and relentless, the mix retains coherence in the way Ovens maneuvers it from one cut to the next. Transitions are often effected seamlessly, such that multiple tracks flow together and give the impression of being a single, shape-shifting whole; Ovens bolsters that effect by having elements from one track re-appear in the next, such as when James Sunderland's vocal carries over from Ulterior Motive's “Muted” into Subtension & Minor Rain's “Sklep,” and he also sometimes combines tracks, a memorable example being the merging of his own “Dummeh” with Chunky's “Ooh Ahh.” Standouts include Dub Phizix's slinky “Bounce” and sultry “Rainy City Music,” Chimpo's stutter-funk throwdown “Atlanta,” and Matthew David Scott's closer “What's Next?,” which includes a heartfelt tribute to Ovens' hometown by the poet, and raw cuts by The Rum Baba, RIOT, Fixate, Sam Binga, Skittles, Basement Jaxx (in a Dub Phizix remix), Xtrah, and Skeptical bring the requisite thunder. As dizzying and occasionally wild as the mix is, it's not an incoherent mess when Ovens's at the controls; certainly it would be hard to imagine nodding off when the level of stimulation and intensity is at such a consistently high level.

December 2015