Chromeo Un Joli Mix Pour Toi CD - Import

There's '70s and '80s retro-fetishism, then there's going straight back to the source -- and on this mix disc, released first in 2005 and then re-released the following year on Eskimo, Chromeo do that in both an entertaining and sometimes mind-boggling fashion. Mixing and matching across preconceived ideas of genre, the duo create a dancefloor play list that, if it didn't actually exist at the time, should have done, somewhere, somehow. Kicking off with the exultantly glamorous electro of "On a Journey" by Elektrik Funk, Chromeo Present un Joli Mix Pour Toi touches on a slew of great one-offs and underrated efforts, raging from the playful R&B of Chemise's killer "She Can't Love You" to Robert Palmer's "You Are in My System" and back again. Sometimes it's all about a perfect contextualization -- the Jets' "Rocket 2 You" coming right off of Love Club's wonderful sleazy "Hot Summer Nights" is great to start with, but when the drums fully kick in it's practically majestic. Other times it's all about making total cheese work -- the guitar solo on Modern Romance's "Burn It" couldn't be more of a representation of its time and yet it's totally killer here, what was expected in one era sounding like an inspired touch now. The segues are fluid enough in terms of the beat, though nearly every time the shift between songs is almost too abrupt when it comes to the arrangements -- as a result it seems like a disc that would go better as a party background effort than something to use in a club. That caveat aside, the great song selection and overall atmosphere make this a treat through and through. (Though to be honest, completely ridiculous though it may be, Calloway's "I Wanna Be Rich" could have been dropped without anyone worrying too much.) ~ Ned Raggett

Following NYC’s Rub‘N’Tug’s psychotic mash-up that was “Campfire” comes another crazed, disco-funk, genrespanning mix from Canada’s sex jammin’ Chromeo. Featuring classic cuts from Sharon Redd, Jellybean, Herbie Hancock, Warp 9 and even Robert Palmer and Modern Romance, “Un Joli Mix Pour Toi” picks out divine disco-funk oddities alongside some harder to find boogie-fied dancefloor classics to provide us with another crate-digging winner from Belgium’s Eskimo Recordings. Discovered in their hometown by fellow Canadian DJ Tiga, Chromeo fuse their penchants for two sorely missed musical genres into a wholly new thing. Pee, the brown-skinned Quebecois street tough, brings analogue synth basslines and drum machine wizardry à la Cameo and Prince. Dave, the Semitic bookworm contributes melodic tales of urban romance that would make Phil Collins shed a tear.