Album Review: Jazzanova - ...Mixing (Sonar Kollektiv)

Writer: Ike Ikwuemesi

Isn’t it always a coup to receive a mixtape from one of your favourite DJs? Not only does it mean a long play anthology of the music they are currently feeling. It also clues you up on their taste, inspirations and style. And when that mixtape is made by none other than the collective Jazzanova, that coup is further embellished. The Berlin based DJ/producers who have been luminaries of progressive dance music – remixing and being remixed – finally do the honourable thing that hallmarks a club DJ’s pedigree.

Not ones to be pigeon-holed, Jazzanova’s latest compilation typically sums up the variegated musical styles they have engaged themselves to. ...Mixing is undeniably a mixed bag. The easiest derivation to their musical itinerary will be one in keeping with Giles Peterson’s play list recipe: the head nodding warm-up sesh; the eclectic up-tempos; and a winding up with conceptual worldwide sounds.

Indeed, Mixing doesn’t stray too far from that formula. From discerning soulful grooves to pulsating beats, the treats come in far and wide. Newly appointed jazzy classics like Jill Scott’s A Long Walk and Bahamadia’s 'Uknowhowwedo' bounce comfortably with involuntary knee benders a la Thinking About by Bakura and 'Rainbow' by Phoojun. Another dance floor seeking tune tucked within the genre skipping catalogue is Sirius Mo’s 'U-Again', surely a soon-to-be classic (if you can get hold of his Sirius EP, you won’t be disappointed).

Jazzanova’s vocalist Clara Hill and Georg Levin feature to cover Patrice Rushen’s Let Your Heart Be Free. In fact this is, of sorts, the producers’ first original collaboration since their superb In Between album. Further exclusives are by the industrial hip hop sounds of Extended Spirit who, a little bird tells me, may be an alter ego of one of the cadre.

...Mixing, though an ear opener, is not as ingenuously warping as their earlier efforts like In Between or Remixed. It’s an accessible and tangible fare that orientates around the songs as stand-alone compositions rather than club DJ mixing in its true sense. Yes, there is a forging of beats in and out of the compilation that is dance floor fodder for the purists amongst us. It would also be intuitive to say that mixing widens its sounds to newcomers to the Jazzanova brand.

RELATED LINKS:
Sonar Kollektiv - record label home to Jazzanova.



Buy Jazzanova's ...Mixing album at Amazon UK (CD / Vinyl) | US (CD).




PUBLISHED: 19 September 2004

RELEASE DATE: 17 May 2004 (UK) | 29 June 2004 (US)

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