Bullet - The Hanged Man (DC Recordings)

The Hanged Man is a must for the sort of people who were into Trunk Records' Battle Of Bosworth remix album and Bungalow's recent reissue of the Peter-Thomas-Sound-Orchester's Space Patrol soundtrack. It's what the people at DC call a "connoisseur special". And what I call a very obscure - but ultimately supercool - rerelease of a 1975 Yorkshire TV thriller soundtrack. If this doesn't put you off then you're info a musical treat of rare grooves and street funk. Stuff that's appearing for the first time on CD having already been sampled by the likes of Jurassic 5 and the Street Smartz.

Although DC first got into the Hanged Man soundtrack from a second hand version they'd found for 20p, copies have been selling between US aficionados for upwards of $300 for some years. The opening theme portrays the Hanged Man exactly as he should be - Shaft in Yorkshire! With 'GBH', 'The Heist' and 'Blue Panther' you have the soundtrack to an imaginary visit from Huggy Bear into the wold of The Sweeny. Memories are made of this. 9/10


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Esthero - Breath From Another (Columbia)

In which 19-year old singer Esthero doubles up with fellow Canadian, producer Martin McKinney for eleven tracks that set out to combine just about every current style of dance music into one ever-evolving soup. Despite this description, Breath From Another is not some cheesy world-beat voyage, but more a short-wave surf into credible X Files territory. The title track is as poppy as they come, elsewhere (on 'Heaven Sent' and others), the pre-millenium female vocalist and male beat junky combination is highly Portishead and lightly Smoke City. More precisely, elements from Esthero are uncannily similar to Bristol's Easter Island art pop duo.

Can sonic Bond extravagances really combine with drum and bass and jazz samples to make a coherent full-length album? Well, ask Bjork for the answer to that one. A fine debut, Esthero lack the crazy edge of an equally mixed-up act like Koop, but come out sounding equally accomplished. 7/10


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Pablo's Eye - Everything She Wants Grows Blue (Swim)

It's rare to find A) an album that actually carries the sleeve note "use of headphones is recommended" and B) a new release from long-term sound collage artists Pablo's Eye. This new offering - yet more quality from the Swim label - is not a million miles away from the trio GOL, last spotted on China Records covering Art of Noise and sounding like a '90s 4AD version of Propaganda.

All tracks on Everything She Wants Grows Blue merge into one seamless chill out or rather chiller, some of the sounds are certainly mined from horror and high tension soundtrack material. But the finished product - ranging from soft drum & bass with sensitive female vocal narration ('The Episodic Nature of Life') to spooky ambient orchestricks with backwards vocals ('The Adjuster') is definitely worth checking out. Strange to note the inclusion of Celtic strings - proving to be the perfect accompaniment to post-club, post-dance beats. Stand-out tracks are the hypnotic 'A Sermon on the Radio' and 'That Night Together With Her' - which sum up all the albums good points in one five minute session. 8/10


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Various - Lost In Space soundtrack (Epic)

What with Spawn, The Jackal and most recently Godzilla, US film soundtracks are becoming useful Best Of selectors of new and second-hand UK big beat tracks. Lost In Space is a little different in that, following Orbital's lead, it features some pieces of original dance score. This time the title track comes from Apollo 440, who turn in the rampage of the 'Lost In Space Theme'. More comic than cosmic but made for the silver screen and a track that should also translate well into everyday life with some decent remixes.

This soundtrack is also the one to get for a superb vocal excursion from Juno Reactor & The Creatures. Surely not THE Creatures in the throbbing techno environment? Fatboy Slim's 'Everybody Needs A 303' is another highlight, as is @440's mellow 'Will & Penny's Theme' and a track from Space with their ruffed-up dancefloor hats on. With only eight dance tracks, the CD also includes ten parts of the original motion picture score by Bruce Broughton. Less than attention-grabbing, but worth a listen for the Terminatoresque 'Spiders Attack'. Possibly the best of the summer's blockbuster soundtracks. 6/10


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The Egg - Travelator (China)

I've always shuddered at the thought of "dance bands that can actually play live", but The Egg can be forgiven just about anything after their demented debut LP of last year, Albumen. This year's offering carries on from where they left off, but because of the their dance viewpoint they've moved with the times. As a result you get tracks like 'Number Cruncher'. Ever wondered how blunted melodies (from the big beat vibe) sound against an acid jazz style funk jam? 'Number Cruncher' has the answer.
Travelator has much more variation than its predecessor. Like the live drum & bass skank of 'Bunmela' and 'Getting Away With It', which vocally is a full-on Brian Eno homage. All of these experiments with different styles certainly work well on plastic. And I'd love to hear tracks like 'Bunmela' pounding away from a live stage in a club.

Other experiments don't work as well. 'Willow' is full of brilliant melodies, classic Egg-style melodies in fact (if there is such a thing already). But whether it works performing them with a mix of drum & bass and classic strings & woodwind is another matter entirely!

Perhaps the continual experimentation is also The Egg's downfall on this LP. Whereas Albumen had a heads down, "let's play live and tape it!" feel, Travelator sounds altogether more prepared and measured. But the mixture is great. Totally refreshing and summery. 8/10


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World Standard - Country Gazette (Asphodel)

Don't be fooled by the country & western packaging and titles, the banjos on this LP are merely crackly samples mixed into bigger picture. This is on Asphodedel after all; wide-screen panoramas from the one of the few legendary US ambient labels. Country Gazette compiles 14 mostly very short tracks all of which follow very similar themes - old vinyl samples, banjos, wind sound effects and true grit. This strange concoction comes courtesy of Sohichiro Suziki and Haruomi Honsono, the latter of which was a founding father of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, the legendary Japanese experimentalist group that also spawned Ryuchi Sakamoto.

So imagine YMO being cut-and-pasted into an obscure cameo appearance in a legendary leftfield western like The Misfits and you'd have this album as the soundtrack. It's hypnotic and so perfectly produced that you can't help but listen to the whole thing, in one go, without pauses. It's one of those. 7/10


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Pizzicato Five - Happy End of You (Matador)

Pizzicato Five's output just seems to get better. That said, this isn't exactly a P5 album... It was only a few months ago that I had the pleasure of reviewing Pizzicato Five's Happy End of The World on these very pages. Looking back, a 9/10 review was certainly generous, but it was one of those instant classics. Happy End Of You, on the other hand, is a remix album with new interpretations of almost all the tracks by a very diverse array of beat surgeons, many of which have been steadily leaked on promo for the past year.

As always with a remix album, the results are very, very varied. Some you'll love forever and others you'll want to instantly forget. Automator's mix of 'Love's Theme' is fresh and useful on the dancefloor. 808 State's track on the other hand adds nothing more than a percussive backing to an original that was best placed as a quirky end of night cheese theme, rather than a mid-night groove. Mixes from Daddy O, DJ Dara and John Oswald are great for 12"s but aren't going to set the world alight as album tracks. But it is interesting to hear bands like GusGus, the High Llamas and Saint Etienne in control - the latter's take on the P5 sound is exactly what you'd expect, but quality all the same. But final prizes should go to Momus ('Trailer Music') and Daniel Miller (working with Gareth Jones on 'The World Is Spinning at 45rpm') who both use their remixing might to completely rip up the originals but retain their original quirkiness. 6/10


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Echo Park - The Revolution of Everyday Life (Lo Recordings)

Echo Park are a dark industrial drum & bass outfit about which I know little. But by listening to the grooves and some in depth sleeve note examinations reveal that this LP is the next logical step in one of 1998's emerging threads of dance music. It's the thread that began with the likes of Fridge (whose Ceefax debut is now slated for a re-release) and continued recently with album releases from UI and Family of God. Echo Park comprises Spykid (heavy on the "loops and scratches") and James Tye (providing more traditional guitars and basses input). They're joined by a veritable army of guitar semi-Gods (including Thurston Moore) all of whom are sampled and treated so as to blend seamlessly into the mix. It's a hypotnotic effect which, on tracks like 'Aum (Aum)' is like a nineties version of Robert Fripp's early Frippertronics and guitar noodlings. But other tracks like 'The Sound of Money' I just don't get - fragments of ideas are used and looped into something that lacks either winning melody or rhythmic depth. But this is only a temporary glitch - 'Razorkiss' fixes the latter problem while 'Air Victim' fixes the former. And 'Innocent X' totally rips things up, as a dance act that employ a 'fuzz bass' player should rightly do. Treat with caution. 6/10


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808 State - 808:88:98 (ZTT)

I was incensed when Jonathan King once described Art of Noise's 'Close (To The Edit)' as "a medley of their hit", but that's exactly how the new mix of 808 State's 'Pacific State' sounds. Thankfully it's also here in its original form, kicking off a career retrospective that continues with probably the most accomplished dance record of the nineties, 'In Yer Face'. 808's 'The Only Rhyme That Bites' should have made MC Tunes a global star, but it wasn't to be. Forget the Dust Junkies - Tune's finest moment was with 808 on the era-defining 'Tunes Splits The Atom' - the only chart hit that's actually missing from this LP.

Fate then put a spanner in the works with the release of 'Lift', a track which fell far under par and seriously skewed the quality-expectation level of an 808 record. A real shame because after this point came their best - if completely overlooked - work: 'Plan 9', '10x10' and the Gorgeous album is by far the best (but least successful) 808 period.

On to 808's more recent work. 'Bombadin' (released more as a ZTT knee-jerk reaction to other, more impressive things going on at the time) and the three singles from the Don Solaris album certainly saw a new, mature direction, with guest vocals from James Dean Bradfield. But being mature never really suited 808 State. As this album proves, they are (were?) at the best when full of youthful energy and it's that they'll be remembered for. 7/10


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Various - Suite 98 (Bungalow)

Two years of Bungalow is reason enough to celebrate - and what better way than with this 13-track compilation of exclusive mixes and rare cuts of some of Europe's most outlandishly cool artistes? Set up by the duo otherwise known as Le Hammond Inferno (close French cousins of Saint Etienne and Pizzicato 5), Bungalow records has defined European lounge-core by releasing tracks by newcomers like Laila France and Momus alongside all time greats like the Peter Thomas Sound Orchester. But some of the newer bands have quickly reached instant - if not 'classic' acclaim - like DoB, who are here with a new remix of 'Au Revoir'. Another track with an instant air of Warholier-than-thou art house fun is Lailia France, who released a debut EP on Bungalow's 12"-only offshoot label, Pool last year. Check out 'M.F.R.F.M.' by Yoshinori Sunahara for a taste of Japanese "intelligent techno" (and find more on his brilliant debut LP, Crossover). Le Hammond Inferno also get involved with Fantastic Plastic Machine, follow up their recent eponymous album with a self-confessed 'Recycled Soft Rock Remix' of 'Laventure Fantastique''.

The only danger zone is the Pop Tarts and their contribution of adolescent Berlin guitar-rock. Not to be confused with Tommy Boy's legendary duo of camp dance pioneers, these particular Pop Tarts are the only dark corner of an otherwise perfectly furnished Bungalow. 8/10


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DJ Andy Smith - The Document (Go Beat)

The DJ as curator of a vast archive of 40 years of vinyl history is not a new concept. But Andy Smith's 15 track compilation is one of the first to physically embrace four decades of dance music and mix them into a cohesive and coherent journey-by-DJ. This is the sort of mix CD you might only expect from Portishead's live support DJ. What starts of in familiar territory (tracks by the Jungle Brothers and the James Gang) soon venture into a more historical vein - cue Barry White and Marvin Gaye. But that's nothing compared to the moments when Tom Jones and Peggy Lee (crooning 'Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay') slide in. But all this is just a give-away - the best way to experience this album is to go in blind and listen with ever raising eyebrows as the whole thing unfolds.

The Document is Definitely consigned to the Eclectic Selection file - and that's before S.L. Troopers merges into The Spencer Davis Group. So stop trying to get hold of bootleg copies of Andy Smith's increasingly bootlegged WFNX Boston radio session and go straight for this, a totally legit assimilation of 60/70/80/90s beats. 9/10


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Koop - Sons of Koop (Colombe D'Or)

Koop will be a new name to most, unless you shop in the Swedish version of the Co-op, from where they take their name. But there are couple of other people who can fill you in on how cool they are. Acid jazz geniuses UFO (United Future Organisation) name-checked the band recently and fellow Swedish fruitcake Stina Nordenstam directed the video for their debut single, 'Glomd'. 'Glomd' has received some well-deserved hype thanks to this and the small-but-perfectly-formed heritage of the Colombe D'Or label. Highly addictive, this track is also praiseworthy for sampling Claude Debussey and mixing 'Prelude A L'Apres-Midi D'un Faune' with dance beats well in advance of Art of Noise's much-heralded (although so far unheard) Debussy-sampling comeback.

The way this album mixes sampled classical string padding and jazz jungle fun makes it sound like the product of a lifetime's - rather than anything shorter - work. Koop have created their own style which varies from classical interludes to 'Army Of Me'-style up-front Bjork-esque meanderings on 'Plasm'. Given the Scandinavian influences, you can expect to hear further Bjork references levelled at the band, but it should be pointed out that tracks on Sons of Koop like 'Bjarne Riis' make 'Hyperballad' sound entirely outdated.

Koop are definitely a new delicacy that needs to be sampled. 9/10


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Various - Cocktail (Recordings of Substance)

This is the first compilation from the drill & bass-oriented Recordings of Substance label (what appears to be an off-shoot of Hydrogen Dukebox). Here you'll find twelve quite varied tracks, some of which are vital 1998 listening although others are best avoided. Magnetic offer a prime example of how this high-speed beats style of drum & bass works in practice. But this serves as merely a warm-up for the awesome random assault of Icarus' 'Moon Palace'. This one merges split-second kitsch theme snippets with wobbling sub-bass anthems. It's also worth pointing out that Icarus are planning a tour of building sites. I hope this isn't just PR smoke as this is actually quite a cool idea!

Elsewhere, the T Power Mix of 'Theo Steps In' by James Hardway will play very strange tricks with your head, thanks to some wicked stereo phasing synth effects (which sound awesome on headphones and would be equally brilliant through a sound system). The James Hardway sound may be new (and somewhat trendy) but it certainly needs some refining. His jazz jungle 'Illustrated Man' is fine but his remix of Omnivore's 'Spandex' goes nowhere fast. Nostramus are the other main stand-out act on Recordings of Substance. 'Babel (Hoax Mix)' is right up my street: atmospheric and driving, make that pounding, at the same time. Even madder is their other track, the appropriately titled 'Let's Fuck It Up'.

Final thought: I hope there's a vinyl version of this album out there as most of this is very DJ-friendly. Check the Witchman Mix of 'Earth Light' by Nostramus and you should hear what I mean. 6/10


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Bang On A Can - Music for Airports (Point Music)

It's about time something like this happened. In the absence of any reissues or reassessments of past glories from the man himself, Bang On A Can have taken it upon themselves to produce an entirely new interpretation/homage of Brian Eno's Music For Airports. If you haven't heard of Music For Airports, it's hardly surprising. This gem of an LP basically kicked off the entire ambient music genre but has been laid to rest in dusty seventies progressive rock sections of second hand record shops for almost twenty years.

But BOAC have brought things right up to date with a complete re-recording of the original album with just one major change. All the synthesiser loops and effects have been sidelined in favour of cover versions using only acoustic instruments! That's cello, bass, piano, percussion, guitar and clarinet, fact fans, which brings to mind the other ambient masters of the acoustic stream, Channel Light Vessel.

To tackle covering an LP like Music For Airports, with all it's intricacies, atmosphere's and themes isn't daring, it's bordering on madness. But the results are staggeringly true to the original, so full marks to the four arrangers who all transcribed every movement of the original, each adding their own particular mood. And the beauty of a reinterpretation using 'real' instruments is that this LP can now be performed live - like at the recent premier staged at - where else? - Stansted Airport. 7/10


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Family of God - Family of God (Ochre)

Any private pressing that's described as intriguingly as "mystic disco" by the New York Times is definitely worth a listen in my book. Now that their debut LP gets a proper release on Ochre, I can try my own descriptions. 1) If The Doors had been lead by Beck, not Jim Morrison, tracks like the album's opener 'Goodnight Piccadilly' might have been released thirty years before Family of God had the idea. Or 2) Family of God sound just as if The Eels were an English sixties beat group.

Cool as these ideas are, there's no escaping the other key element on this LP: cheese, pure and unadulterated. When it works ('Moog Over Easy') it's easy to see why this duo have stormed New York clubs like the Elbow Room and the Luna Lounge. When it doesn't ('Moog River' and 'Teenage Beach Musical'), it's easy to see why the cheese craze in the UK transformed (fizzled out?!) so quickly. But with more serious tracks like 'Sabrina' it's easy to see why Family of God have become the darlings of both the NY club and gig scenes. I'll be stunned if this one doesn't turn up on the soundtrack to some US thriller movie in the very near future. Another wicked track is Black And White Universe, the sort of music we'd hear more of if just half the UK big beat artists could write lyrics. Then there's 'Babble' and 'Nirvana' the sort of tracks that only nuts in New York could record.

A strange, completely random double album which - dodgy religious connotations aside - is worth checking out for the two sublime tracks tucked away amongst 20-or-so others. 4/10


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Skinny – Weekend (Cheeky)

The thought of the return of the concept album is certainly scary and brings to mind Pink Floyd, seventies prog-rock and sixty minute guitar solos. But what if the concept was the weekend - with all it's hang-ups, get-downs, highs and lows - and the album was on Rollo's Cheeky label? Bit of a different proposition? The weekend, probably the most important regular occurrence in any reader of this magazine's life, is explored in all it's complexities by Skinny in the most important debut album so far this year. From Friday night to the wind-down zone to the perils of nights out in the big bad city, this is one album that doesn't need track titles of its own, because all the emotions you know and love are dramatically and explicitly explored within. If you need documentary evidence - just take a spin of 'Failure', Skinny's promo sampler from the tail end of '97 that is still ripping it up as the summer of 98 burns in.

Weekend certainly skims a whole raft of styles, but every aspect packs the same production punch. 'Friday Part 1' is the natural follow-on from 'Failure', using a similar double bass groove. More laid back tracks come in the form of 'The Bus Song' and the ambient epic 'London Tonight' (complete with samples from your favourite news show). In fact the only problem with Weekend is nothing new to seventies-style concept albums and that's the unevenness of vocals and vocal styles across the set. But with that as the only complaint, Weekend is a pretty essential album. You had to be there. 9/10


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