There is an appealing roughness to this mix from Actress, his first commercial compilation. He is more than happy for a few bumps and knocks to remain between tracks, and not beyond shifting the tempo quite a bit in one go. This gives the music a more ‘human’ element as it unwinds. It works, too, because this is an imaginative mix with a few curveballs from the likes of Autechre and Shit and Shine, and a dancefloor killer from Chez N Trent. Around these Cunningham doesn’t let his listener settle, throwing a wide variety of genres into his concoction, as though responding to the requests of an invisible crowd. It makes a change from your over-slick production, that’s for sure. DJ Kicks is nearly 50 releases old – this is the 49th – and we can only hope it carries on to be at least one hundred!
4 out of 5
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood
