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Adam Freeland - Mexico City GU032

(Global Underground; US: 19 Jun 2007; UK: 4 Jun 2007)

Adam Freeland scores it big with his entry in the Global Underground mix series. Not that I’ve been trolling the mix CDs over the past few months, but this is the first one I’ve seen to include Carl Craig’s epic mix of Faze Action “In the Trees”. The track’s been written about already, and Freeland gives it to us in full glory—the very first song on the double CD. Freeland’s not only got that scoop as a couple tracks from KIM (half of the Presets), whose album was a super-exclusive Japan only affair, contribute to the first CD’s electro banging feel.  From the obligatory Ed Banger contributions (Justice, Mr. Oizo) to Spank Rock’s “Bump (Switch Remix)” to Brit Justice wannabes Does It Offend You, Yeah? , the disc plays like an indie dance party in the Lower East Side. The second CD takes things into a more cerebral place, though its middle section detours into straight dance-rock, with Silversun Pickups and Fujiya & Miyagi. As with recent party mixes from JDH & Dave P and Fabriclive entries from Spank Rock and Rub’n'Tug, the emphasis throughout is on the party vibe, rather than the smoothness of the mix. You get the sense that now, in this iPod age, there’s a bigger market for songs people who read blogs will recognize rather than mood-sustaining exercises in mood creation. No matter, when you’ve got 120 Days’ now recognisable “Come Out” and Tom Vek’s “Nothing But Green Lights” you’re too busy enjoying yourself to think much about it.

Rating:

Dan Raper has been writing about music for PopMatters since 2005. Prior to that he did the same thing for his college newspaper and for his school newspaper before that. Of course he also writes fiction, though his only published work is entitled "Gamma-secretase exists on the plasma membrane as an intact complex that accepts substrates and effects intramembrane cleavage". He is currently studying medicine at the University of Sydney, Australia.


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