BBE Sampler

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I first came across Barely Breaking Even when my soundtrack-obsessed friend excitedly played me a BBE comp called "Bite Hard" - TV-themes and incidental music produced by London's DeWolfe Studios in the 70s. Featuring music from "The Sweeney" and "The Professionals" amongst others, its bass-heavy grooves and wah-wah-laden funk steered just the right side of cheese. A reverential approach to their re-releases (Bite Hard was edited down from 5000 albums apparently) of classic dance-based music as well as their newer music runs across all BBE's albums, and this sampler CD is a good guide to the quality and quantity of their catalogue. Their main strengths are reissuing classic 70s funk (mixed by Patrick Forge, Keb Darge, and Dr. Bob Jones fr'instance) and mixing 90s house (in the same vein as Nuphonic, Paper and Masters At Work). This is a comp with some breadth though: from the Frank Farian-like strings sweeping across Starvue's "Bodyfusion" to "Funky Sitar Man's" er, funky sitar, to Masta Ace's heavy duty hip hop, to the DeWolfe Studio's TV theme heaven, to various Studio 54/Paradise Garage-style workouts, to finely-crafted contemporary house. Personally, the standout tracks are Bill Ravi Harris' sitar, the DeWolfe piece, and Elmer and Brenda Parker's fantastic "Got To Get Back To Louisiana", an incredibly raw, energetic piece of music. All have an elusive quality: that of long-lost gems uncovered in tiny dusty second-hand records shops in Croydon. Or something. Ben Jolly and Pete Adarkwah got BBE off the ground in early '97 after years of hard work, and with their new Little Louie Vega and Kenny Dope Gonzalez mix albums, and regular Bar Rumba (London) shows every Sunday, they would seem to have barely broken through. Jolly well done. And Adarkwah too.