DJ-Kicks

Photographer: Chris Arace.
Matthew Dear's addition to the !K7 label's DJ-Kicks series follows Fabric 27 (2006) and Body Language, Vol. 7 (2008) as the artist's third commercially available mix album. Like the preceding two, the selections are up to date, with only an Alex & Digby edit of Gary Sloan and Clone's "Harmonitalk" (1980) potentially making the listener feel transported to another era (à la Mixed Up in the Hague). After a gentle instrumental from Nils Frahm, Dear leads into the mix with a turbulent dancefloor ballad, one of his hypnotic, slightly unsettling best. It plays out for its duration, after which Dear sequences finely detailed and near-brutal selections that blur into one another. After the mix seems to peak with a section of battering Simian Mobile Disco, Pearson Sound, and Soulphiction tracks, Dear ratchets up the intensity with a clutch of his Audion productions. Punctuated by DJ Khalab (and Baba Sissoko)'s rolling and disorienting "Kumu," this is Dear's funnest and oddest mix yet. ~ Andy Kellman