If you heard last year’s outstanding fIN album, you will know that John Talabot makes some incredibly alluring music, taking in elements of dance music’s past but making his own, heat soaked sound that hovers around the chunky disco-house interface without fully setting its roots down. His DJ Kicks mix builds on that album’s prowess with a fluently mixed selection of 27 tracks, setting a scene and planting some very danceable beats from the outset. The continuity in his mixing is strong, the joins sometimes difficult to spot, and there are many highlights, building on the Barcelona producer’s reputation for choosing well in his sets. Early on there are sultry contributions from Andy Stott, who mixes up a humid version of Maps’ ‘I Heard Them Say’, and Talabot himself, with the customary new track for DJ Kicks – the excellent ‘Without You’. Axel Boman then forms the centre point of the mix with ‘Klinsmann’, a soulful vocal mixing with sharp synths and a chunky beat to brilliant effect. Then, as things get more housey towards the business end of the mix, we can enjoy Mistakes Are Okay’s ‘Night Watcher’, the Unknown ‘#001’, Genius of Time’s ‘Juno Jam’ and Kron’s ‘Silikron’, warm as toast in its Jürgen Paape remix. This is irresistible, high quality music making.
