DJ Cam DJ-Kicks CD - Import

The Playgroup installment of the DJ-Kicks series acts as an ideal counterpart to the collective's self-titled album, which was released only a few months prior in the U.S. Trevor Jackson, the orchestrator behind Playgroup, more or less unfurls the Playgroup blueprint here, harvesting rarities from Larry Levan's Paradise Garage sets and dishing out picks from the numerous scenes that have taken inspiration from New York City and Chicago clubs of the '80s. Material's fat-bottomed "Ciquri" bleeds into Harlequin 4's version of the hi-hat happy "Set It Off," which dissolves into Impedance's dubby, detached version of "Tainted Love." Random Factor's "Broken Mirror," an anxious blend of synth pop à la Visage ("Fade to Grey") and paranoiac unease à la Rockwell ("Somebody's Watching Me"), floats into Cultural Vibe's "Ma Foom Bey," an early garage staple. While there are stylistic similarities tying everything together, there's a wide range of moods throughout. The sweet bump of Metro Area's "Caught Up" is followed by Tiny Trendies' melancholic "The Sky Is Not Crying," and Wanda Dee's explicitly lusty "Gonna Make You Sweat" is succeeded by post-punk revivalists the Rapture, whose "House of Jealous Lovers" screams and scrawls with echoes of Gang of Four and Pigbag. Many will find this potent mix of the old and the new to be more palatable than Playgroup itself. It gleefully bounces from 1980 to 2000, hits most points in between, and keeps it exciting from beginning to end. ~ Andy Kellman

Cam calls his own sound 'abstract hip hop', & his acclaimed album, Substances, offers a definition: streetwise beats laced with film samples, jazzy touches, eastern influences & great swathes of symphonic strings. Imagine DJ Krush, DJ Shadow & Massive Attack all gathering join some smoky Left Bank jazz cafe. It's an instrumental music that vaults all language barriers. As often as not the rhythm is implied rather than present, but hip hop provides both the music's structure & its production technique. At the decks, he's likely to be found spinning hard, fat breakbeats & heavy jungle. But on this specially crafted DJ Kicks mix- including Bronx Theme, a track composed exclusively for this album- he returns to his first love, plucking music from the UK, USA, France, Belgium & Switzerland to mix abstract hip hop with the real underground deal.

This is part of !K7 Records DJ KICKS series.

Photographer: Ali Kepenek.Rolling Stone (11/14/02, p.88) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Jackson spins a dazzlingly eclectic and consistently funky set guaranteed to get any party started right..."
Uncut (8/02, p.114) - 3.5 out of 5 - "...[This] addition to the consistently entertaining DJ KICKS series features a similarly diverse range of styles..."
NME (Magazine) (6/29/02, p.37) - 8 out of 10 - "...Narcissistic novice electroclashers, form an orderly queue here."