Review by Rob Levy
Label: Global Underground
In 2002, James Lavelle took time out from his crazy schedule to record a DJ set in Barcelona for Global Underground's DJ mix series. It was an amazing set filled with punchy electronic beats, tribal breakbeat sounds and acid house melodies. Lavelle was at the top of his game.
Lavelle is back at it again with his second Global Underground foray, number 26 in the series, entitled Romania. The set was recorded last December in Bucharest at Studio Martin. Romania was selected for this gig because Bucharest has superceded Budapest as the epicenter of Balkan club culture. Romania is booming socially and economically; as a result it is the latest Eastern European country to have a re-energized club scene.
Romania is neatly put into two halves, one entitled "Beauty" and "The Beast." Both halves form the core of a hard as hell set that moves from a rock-oriented beginning into to an abstract, blippy middle and a crunchy, house-flavored end. The Beauty side is the rockier sounding of the two halves. Lavelle believes rock music has a place on his dance floor and begins with his own remix of Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows." This moves into some UNKLE songs before finding DJ Shadow’s beat heavy crusher "GDMFSOB." Before settling into more experimental sounds, on Disc Two he unleashes Brit Popsters Ian Brown and The South into the mix.
As a DJ, Lavelle likes to push the boundaries. He builds upon the more rock based sound of Disc One and carries it into a more melodious sounding second half. "The Beast" is funky, fresh and lively. Lavelle quickens the pace here, spreading it out on the horizon. He opens with a faint hum that rises into Richie Hawtin's paranoid masterpiece, "Ask Yourself," then gets into some downright sweaty tracks by Craig Richard and UNKLE (again). You can almost hear Bucharest boogying as things accelerate with Peace Division's "No More Subliminal Shit" before plunging onwards, eventually settling the set into the house music bliss with the "Don't Funk" by Photek and culminating with the Chemical Brothers/Flaming Lips confab, "The Golden Path." After that the adrenaline slows down, collapsing finally with UNKLE's quieter "In A State."
DJ mix CDs are trigger little bastards to listen to. They are circumspect because very seldom do they deliver the goods from Track 1 on through until the very end. Romania sidesteps this dilemma because Lavelle mapped out a set that avoided redundancy while building layers of sound that smoothly transitioned into reach other, carefully sculpting a tempo that was never excessive or overbearing.
James Lavelle's next project is a new full-length from UNKLE entitled Never Never Land.
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