November 3, 2003 • Fabric
I have a confession to make. It may not seem like it on the surface, but I really don't listen to all that much electronic music. Sure, I dabble in breakcore and drum and bass a bit, but recently I discovered how much I was missing out on and decided to jump into electronic dance music, starting with house. And I'm kicking myself for not doing so sooner; one of the very first releases I found, Michael Mayer's Fabric 13 DJ mix, blew my mind completely.
Now, I've heard house before, so I didn't come into this blind. I can tell this is some comparatively good stuff here, or at the very least it plays to my tastes well. In contrast to certain cheesy poppy French house groups I've experienced (you know the one I mean) I really dig the stripped-down, all-business approach taken here. The vocals are subdued and click with the music really well. The beats themselves are all fantastic. It's difficult to comment on them as a whole since the styles vary considerably, but there are more than a few highlights: the fidgety bass and somber strings on "Bring Me Closer", the glitchy industrial drums of "Killerteppich", the incredible dancy fun-ness of "Run into Flowers"... I could go on.
Mayer does a great job mixing the tracks together; with maybe one or two exceptions every track here is pretty great. (I'm not a huge fan of "Easy Lee" and "Love Me", partly due to the annoying vocals in each, and some of the more minimal tracks can get a bit dull.) Like many albums it does fall prey to having a bit of filler in the middle, but maybe it's more of a case of the opening and closing tracks overshadowing the rest of the mix. Still, it's overall a great collection and it really does get better with every listen. Somehow, very upbeat and very dark tracks both get thrown in together and yet it still sounds really cohesive.
Anyway, I've talked out of my ass enough and I'm sure any house veteran is probably snorting indignantly at this review, but hey, at least I'm trying.
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