herbal blend - herbaliser (ninjatune)

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there are certain records that are personal milestones in my learning of the hiphop world.
for the record these are duck rock by malcolm mclaren, rockit by herbie hancock and timezone - lydon/bambaataa

so when i see that timezone long lost call to arms classic is embedded within ths mix my heart leapt, as my 12" has grooves so dirty and grimy that it has a government warning sticker on it now, so a shiny silver version will keep me cosy in the long winter months ahead .. or will it .. more on this later.

so let us check the rest of the tracklisting ..

rodney p, wu tang, dj shadow, steinski & mass media, deelite and carol kaye, herbaliser themsleves, dj food, mc shan, the quantic soul.

are you drooling yet ?

hang on - carol kaye ? well let me tell you, as the provider for most of the funky licks on david axelrods epics her name should be a very welcome addition, and indeed her entry is a mix highlight .. which is no easy thing with some of the neighbours.

this hour long mashup mix follows in the currently in demand mixtape genre. something that label owners coldcut probably helped establish as a viable commercial commodity with their long reigning entry '70 minutes of madness' all those years ago. time for them to release a new one perhaps .. i heard a rumour that they are contemplating it ..

recently though there have been a lot of new contenders to the throne of mad/genre busting mixes, some work brilliantly unklesounds/bentley rhythm ace/dj shadow/2 many dj's/dj yoda, but there have been some serious let downs, understandably most of the better stuff is out there in hidden corners of internet (and indeed ninjatune.net!)
.. but for those of us on old school dialup we need to be able to get the product proper from somuno ..

i have to admit though when i saw this was mixed by herbiliser i was slightly concerned.

having heard their album 'blow your headphones' i knew that the herbal crew could cut the hip-hop funky groove like no-one else, but i also heard their downtempo jazz soundtrack epic as well, and while the critics loved that, i found it over indulgent and not worthy of repeated listens.

so which way will this fall ?

well jake and ollie (for they are herbaliser) have obviously decided to get the party rocking. as this mix falls firmly into the 'lets rip this mother up' style.

from the standard opening which takes the coldcut blueprint of old cartoon samples and flying beats the rest then falls into beautiful sequenced classics set against unfamiliar carboot grooves.

highlights are many. for me though the sheer old school funky groove from quantic soul orchestra came as the biggest shock .. sounding like its straight out of a recent 60's soul sanctioned tv advertising campaign this would sit amongst any stax party tape and would hold its bopping head high and proud .. i will be investigating this name out more, in fact this track starts the best section as it leads into carol kayes section which the drops into the political satire of steinski which is just as relevant today as it was in 92.

and so it goes on even reviving the long lost go-go groove. and so to the grand finale of Timezone mashed with a herbaliser classic 'the missing suitcase'.

it does not work.

the track loses the anger/vitriol/passion that made the original such a vital piece of vinyl.

the interplay of bambaataa/lydon is lost in the mix, but i suspect that this is more to do with my love of the original and anyone hearing this for the first time may hear a downright funky beat and love it.

all in all this is one helluva block rocking party stomping blast, though for me a few more mad sonic moments would have increased the fun quota, as it is, the track selection is solid and there aren't any real duds.

c'mon coldcut, isn't it time to show these new upstarts who's the daddy ? time to reclaim the crown ..