After scrambling the minds of terrified ravers with ‘Mr Kirk’s Nightmare’, 4Hero went on to become drum ‘n’ bass pioneers with award-winning albums like Two Pages before arriving at their present station as elder statesmen of British black music, most recently Play With The Changes appearing on their Raw Canvas label. This third volume of Sonar Kollektiv’s Šmixing series sees Dennis ‘Dego’ McFarlane follow Jazzanova and Ame with a varied, knowledgeable set, kicking off with Bootsy Collins’ Fat Cat before casting a net wide enough to rope together Scientist’s deep dub and jazz-funk keyboards-wiz Patrice Rushen. Dego manages to straddle the past [The Skatalites’s Roots Dub] and present [Sa-Ra’s mix of Roy Hargrove’s On The One] while genre-hopping between J.Dilla’s hiphop and electronic innovator Raymond Scott, popping the odd surprise like the lush disco-boogie of Two Sisters’ High Noon from 1983 or Georgia Anne Muldrow’s sublime Blackman. After all this action, the set goes out calm and mellow with the surreal hiphop of Little Brother’s Nighttime Manouvres and Detroit producer Waajeed’s Make Doe. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world that all this diverse tackle can co-exist on the same CD with such natural flow.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs
