Cr2 (Nov 2010)
On listening to the brain simmering, head shaking and arms flailing 3 CD compilation album Live and Direct, I found myself longing for a glow stick. The collaboration of Uner, Coyu and Edu Imbernon (say that five times fast, I dare you) is based on an experimental set on the June 2010 Cr2 release, Space Ibiza. These Live and Direct compilations are always extensive, their most recent release being packed full of hearty mixes from the mecca of dance, Ibiza. As someone who isn’t overly familiar with this music scene, even I could still notice that this is really three separate albums which have been scattered together so as to earn some bigger bucks.
All three DJ’s have aspiring and prolific careers ahead of them as purveyors of spin and beats, one can’t help wonder that lumping them together with this project was too much too fast. Even so, the beats and vocal analogues in this album brought the summer out in spite of the winter chill, making me think of beaches, tents and strobes.
Despite these tangibly hot thoughts of summer, also brought along for the ride was the same old Ibiza routines I have heard many times before. Some mixes were unoriginal and others were just plain annoying. The unfortunate thing about these ‘jam packed’ collections is that they use too much range, attempting to target too many at once and don’t establish a core sound or theme.
Conversely, these compilation sets can uncover some dance treasures. There were several attractive and hypnotic gems in this album, such as SLG’s ‘I Love You But I’ve Chosen Disco’ and Westboy’s ‘Bond, West, Bond’. Tracks like this gave an eloquence (a word not often associated with dance music but nevertheless) to this massive disco release. The few fluent and forcible remixes are not enough to make me succumb however. A truly healthy dose of mix medicine but no sugar is going to help this medicine go down.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
