It’s time for a breath of fresh air. After nearly a year of artist-exclusive mixes and an entire archive’s worth of pure progressive house, I decided to switch gears and delve into the world of indie house and nu disco. It’s a sound that requires commitment. It has the lowest signal-to-noise ratio of any subgenre I’ve ever seen, perhaps because I’m not married to it. A small handful of these tracks date back to 2008, because I’ve been sitting on them that long waiting for the perfect time. A few more are popular favorites, and yet even more are undiscovered gems well-deserving of evangelism.

This mix was partially-inspired by the recent release of Planet Funk’s greatest hits, also known as their official demise. They brought the uplifting, Italian house influence to the forefront, and in a decidedly tasteful way. That their work wasn’t met with more widespread success I attribute to being way ahead of their time. I’ve no doubt 2005’s The Illogical Consequence would be far better-received in today’s climate, but alas. Progressive music — while complex, rewarding and epic in form — is by and large introspective and periodically subject to brooding. What delights about music like this is the unabashed enthusiasm. It’s infectious. I love it. I wish there was more to go around. There’s always room in this world for it.

Cheers.

Running Time: 1:19:56
File Size: 183.4 MB @ 320 kbps

1. Acos CoolKAs – Separation Point [Brown Eyed Boyz]
2. Sebastién Tellier – Kilometer (A-Trak Remix) [Record Makers]
3. Frankmusik – Confusion Girl (Riffs & Rays Club) [CDR]
4. Knightlife – All Systems (Nile Delta Mix) [Cutters]
5. Solila – Atlantis (D-Pulse Perchila Mix) [Add2Basket]
6. Danny Howells – Laid Out (Fully Horizontal Mix) [Dig Deeper]
7. Zoot Woman – We Won’t Break (Boris Dlugosch Les Visteurs Remix) [ZWR]
8. Villains & Classixx feat. o8o – I’m On It [Buzzard Gulch]
9. Grum – Go Back (Le Castle Vania Remix) [CDR]
10. Cut Copy – Lights & Music (Moulinex Remix) [Modular]
11. Relation – Your Tiny Mind (Lifelike Remix) [Urbantorque]
12. Red Squared – Don’t Be Afraid [CDR]
13. Sneaky Sound System – It’s Not My Problem (Thin White Duke Remix) [CDR]
14. Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks (Fred Falke Extended Mix) [Warp]

This latest entry in Explorations might as well be a kickoff for a new series called Legends, centering on the widely-varied palette and rich history of Andy Holt, better-known as Redanka. This mix covers over ten years of material ranging from Andy’s formative years on Whoop! Records and Hooj Choons right up to his latest peak time thrillers of pop music’s hottest names. While initially known to pair up with studio partner Chris Bourne, a.k.a. Tarrentella, Holt has gone on to remix such names as Way Out West, Above & Beyond, Delerium, Fatboy Slim and even U2, who loved his work so much they invited him back for more. During all this he still found time for additional collaborations (Denny Tenaglia, Lee Burridge, Satoshi Tomiie, Sander Kleinenberg) and production projects (Steve Lawler, Mick Parks, Girl Nobody). With a resumé like this, wouldn’t it be prudent to assume Redanka’s fabled history speaks for itself, making an exploration an exercise in redundancy?

As a matter of fact, no. Within the industry Andy Holt is the producer’s producer, valued for his sturdy, consistent and innovative approach. Beyond that, however, he is easily passed over in favor of more extroverted DJ personalities. Having produced only a handful of original releases and no full-length album or mix series, Redanka’s magic is scattered across a smattering of releases via 12″ promos, CD singles and digital exclusives. His name is the ultimate reward to diligent trainspotters, providing a fresh journey even in the most unlikely of material.

This mix began with over thirty potential tracks, each bringing something irresistible to the table. Over the last few weeks it was meticulously whittled down to the final 11 tracks in order to accommodate the 80-minute mix limit, and what a chore that was. There was enough proper material to do this three times over, but the end result is as diverse as the man himself. From Jimpy’s Talkin’ (one of Redanka’s first) to the textbook flawless reworking of U2’s Vertigo, to his very own unsung anthem In A State, it’s all here. Redanka has emboldened progressive house within the scene and provided avenues of exposure outside of it. And for that, he deserves the hat tip.

Running Time: 1:19:12
File Size: 182 MB @ 320 kbps

Tracklisting:

1. Atlas – Compass Error (Tarrentella & Redanka Remake) [Plastica RED]
2. Datar – B (Tarrentella & Redanka NYSC Mix) [Hooj]
3. Tilt – Seduction of Orpheus (Tarrentella & Redanka Remix) [Hooj]
4. Jimpy – Talkin’ (Tarrentella & Redanka Remix) [Whoop!]
5. INXS – Afterglow (Redanka’s Afterdark Remix) [Epic]
6. Snow Patrol – Open Your Eyes (Redanka Remix) [CDR]
7. Above & Beyond – Good For Me (Redanka Vocal Mix) [Anjunabeats]
8. The Spoons – Nova Heart (Redanka Plugged Mix) [Release]
9. Suicide Sports Club – Last Ghost In Town (Redanka Mix) [B_Rock]
10. U2 – Vertigo (Redanka Power Mix) [Universal]
11. Redanka – In A State (Vocal Mix) [RIP]

This is by no means the retrospective of a legacy, but rather a live report on the wake of destruction being left behind. There isn’t a lot to say about Luke Chable that hasn’t already been said. He’s a pioneer of the progressive sound, and continues a steady output of original works and remixes. This latest entry in the Explorations series, for the most part, reflects an ongoing, inherent nature of Chable’s productions: Boomy, breaky, set-ending peak-time epic monsters with all balls and no compromise. If I had a nickel for every time I blew a place up or turned heads with a Chable track, I’d have a lot of nickels. Sentrino alone would probably own half of them.

I’ve been wanting to do this mix for a long, LONG time. It took me this long to locate all the tracks I wanted to use (Acquiring them all ran up about an $80 tab), and put them together in a way that made sense. Picking 80 minutes representative of Luke Chable’s range of work is no small task, though aided in part by my previous use of three tracks that otherwise would’ve made the cut: Skyline Road (You Killed Kenny), Dream On (Devane) and OZ (X:Coast). It’s a wide gamut, another testament to the artist whom this effort is dedicated to. The tracklisting covers a number of Chable’s remixes and a few original works, plus a couple slices from his esteemed Lostep project with Phil K. By picking these 12 tracks, I neglected metric tons of other equally-deserving releases. Perhaps that calls for a part 2 someday.

In the event that I actually manage to become a full-blown producer, I’d love nothing more than to sound like this. Cheers Luke, for helping make the bright side of progressive music what it is.

Running Time: 1:19:36
File Size: 182 MB @ 320 kbps

Tracklisting:

1. Lostep – Naughty [GU Music]
2. Chable & Bonnici – Ride [Alternative Route]
3. Shiloh & Luke Chable – Sentrino [Baroque]
4. Luke Chable – Pressure [Neon]
5. Chable vs. The Dirty Fours – Tokyo (Chable’s Yellow Remix) [Trojan]
6. Mortar & Pestle – Itsachickthing (Luke Chable Remix) [Heavy Rotation]
7. Gus Gus – David (Luke Chable Remix) [Hussle]
8. Trafik – Your Light (Luke Chable’s Vocal Breaks Mix) [GU Music]
9. 21st Century Fuxx – Sunspirit (Ivan Gough & Luke Chable’s Oreo Breakbeat Remix) [Inversus]
10. Blackwatch Presents Professor Okku – Word Unspoken (Luke Chable Remix) [Shinichi]
11. Steve May – Open Day (Luke Chable Quakes & Craters Mix) [EQ Grey]
12. Lostep – Burma (Lostep’s Stoned Immaculate Mix) [GU Music]

Pursuant to the oft-mention in my Sunny Delight post a couple weeks ago, I am finally kicking off Explorations, a series I’ve wanted to do for quite some time. Put together in the form of tribute mixes with very minimal overtures, this project’s purpose is to introduce people to a variety of niche artists they might otherwise have not been exposed to. The guidelines are fairly simple: Original works, remixes by (not for), collaborations and side projects are okay. Using tracks from full-length albums would defeat the purpose. The point is to showcase these artists’ lesser-known masterpieces — and believe me, there are many. Many of them have never had the opportunity to produce complete, cohesive works. Others who have, leave an unfailing trail of one-offs and remixes tragically overlooked. In my own little way, this is how I resolve such issues to fellow enthusiasts.

Up first is Digital Witchcraft, a fitting group as any to start this off. Loosely formed in 2000 by Marcus Bacalis and Ned Shepard, they released a small series of tracks through Opek Music and Institution Breaks. After a series of extremely well-received Featured Artist mixes and appearances, Digital Witchcraft was thrust into the mainstream limelight when their unreleased masterpiece ‘Fingerpaint’ was dropped by Way Out West on BBC Radio 1. While it went unsigned for nearly two years until Proton Radio formed a vanity label to rescue it from purgatory, Ned and Marcus slipped out a couple more releases and a pair of remixes, and Ned partnered with Sultan for a string of releases under the side project Jiva. Digital Witchcraft, from 2003 to 2005, was extraordinarily popular amongst progressive enthusiasts, and their relaxed, downtempo style made them the hot new pick for lounge and afterhours parties. I still vividly recall walking into Dark Room Bar in Chicago, hearing Blake Jarrell spinning Snowday, and feeling completely at home. Every track in this collection I consider near and dear to my heart.

It’s tough to tell what went wrong. Digital Witchcraft’s total material amounted to a half dozen original works, a side project and a couple remixes — barely enough to even make a mix. Was it promotion? Did the records just not sell? Were they impacted by the sudden closure of EDM Digital, who hosted and sold nearly their entire discography? Did the sound just not catch on? I can’t imagine why not. Not a single person I know — electronic musically-inclined or otherwise — has not found this work inspired, uplifting and utterly euphoric. The most tragic part of all this, is that save for sparse 12″ releases and the personal collections of zealous digital download buyers between 2004 and 2006, this stuff simply doesn’t exist. Being of the latter allows me the unique opportunity to present the following mix to you, in tribute to one of my favorite acts. Cheers to Ned and Marcus for their gift to the scene.

Running Time: 1:03:49
File Size: 146 MB @ 320 kbps

Tracklisting:

1. Pocket Universe/Fingerpaint [Opek/Proton]
2. Snowday [Institution]
3. Kaylee’s Blanket [Institution]
4. Jiva – Strange Dimensions [Bedrock Breaks]
5. Brindavan [Opek]
6. Dangerous Music [Looq]
7. Habersham & Numinous – Leaving Tifton (Digital Witchcraft Remix) [Blueprint]
8. Jono Fernandez – Deliver Me (Digital Witchcraft Remix) [Institution]

Any artist — whether they prefer working alone or in a group — can tell you at least one time when someone else was in the room too, the magic struck, and the results were nothing less than inspired. Such was the case here, in a chance happenstance of a chance encounter. It was two days before Christmas 2008, I’d been visiting family in St. Louis, and was headed home to Seattle when a massive snowstorm hit and blocked every road into the state. I then detoured south to Los Angeles, and hung out for a few days with Shane, my longtime partner-in-crime and founder of BT Network.

One evening of noodling around on Ableton Live with various tracks, turned into an 18 hour all-night burn, in which we amassed as many rare and badass tracks as we could in a joint-effort mix. We dubbed it Devane, promised it’s greatness to a few dozen people, and didn’t release it. Three months later, we finally dug it out, touched it up and have posted it for your pleasure.

Also available is the original version with NSFW vocal samples:

Running Time: 1:19:56
File Size: 183.5 MB @ 320 kbps

Tracklisting (At long last!):

1. Way Out West – Impact
2. BT – Remember (Edge Factor Remix)
3. Hybrid – Fall Out Of Love (Dekkard’s Roadkill Mix)
4. L-vee – Beatniks
5. Toksin – Stunned Monkey
6. General Midi – Milton (Digital One Mix)
7. General Midi – Milton (Digital Zero Instrumental)
8. Miguel Migs – So Far (Eric’s Old School Revival)
9. Shiloh – Dream On (Luke Chable Remix)
10. Depeche Mode – It’s No Good (BT Dub Mix)
11. Chromeo – Needy Girl (Paper Faces Remix)
12. BT & Sasha vs. Quivver – Magic Phatcunt Ride (R3volve Edit)
13. The Toxic Avenger – Escape (Bloody Beetroots Remix)
14. Le Castle Vania – Zero Machine

This mix is a convergence of sorts; and in a rapidly-becoming trend, the second dedication in a row. Conceived, mixed and posted in 90 minutes flat, this was borne of a conversation I had with a dear friend who had somehow managed not to hear Grayarea’s years of lore. After I streamed her a few tracks online, she determined (correctly) that it was fantastic running music, and begged for the songs. Instead of obliging, I decided to throw together my favorite moments of Grayarea’s storied original works and remixes into a 50-minute mix — a good workout length. This fulfilled two more of my itches: To do my own Nike+ style mix, and to do one of a single artist (Which I’ve thought of spinning off into an Exploration series, as there’s many artists I’d love to do this with: Blue Haze, Jaytech, Digital Witchcraft, Salt Tank, The Light, etc.).

Grayarea has been something of a question mark in latter day times. They were a moderate success in their early years with ‘One For The Road’, and gained mainstream progressive notoriety when Nick Warren dropped ‘Yewminyst’ — a triumph — on his GU024 Reykjavik mix in 2003. Throughout the next couple years they remixed over a dozen artists, culminating with the original work ‘Gravity’ in 2005, released as a single 12″ and online as a free download. A full length album following the departure of Nosmo from the group was shopped around in 2006, but never picked up. The remaining members McRae and Ruin have held fast regardless, and with a remix for BT’s upcoming album in the works, may be on the verge of a rebirth.

Upon reflection of this 52 minute retrospective, I can say from the depths of my heart that I’d love nothing less than for the fierce return of Grayarea. The days of their prime remain some of my most beloved and cherished moments in electronic music. I recall the first times hearing each of these tracks with stunning clarity, knowing they were destined for greatness and longevity. Grayarea gave the late breakbeat scene of the 90s a reason to cheer again, fusing unconventional arrangements with beautifully-composed melodies and even better harmonics. It was a rare breed: Peak time dancefloor material that rewarded headphone listeners. Not a single new artist has come close since.

Cheers, Sunny. Thanks for the reminder.

Running Time: 52:08
File Size: 119.5 MB @ 320 kbps

Tracklisting:

1. Grayarea – Yewminyst [Hope]
2. Digital Witchcraft – Brindavan (Grayarea’s Purging The Inventory Remix) [CDR]
3. Billy Dalessandro – In The Dark (Grayarea Smart Bar Mix) [Kompute]
4. Blackwatch & Greed – Gentle Rain (Grayarea’s Dismembered Breaks Remix) [Release]
5. Benz & MD – Wonder (Grayarea’s America’s Hat Remix) [Hope]
6. Grayarea – Gravity [Hope]
7. Bedrock – Emerald (Grayarea’s Speakeasy Remix) [Bedrock]

I’ve always had a healthy, unabashed and unapologetic enthusiasm for the old school. My most prized possession is Backlog by Leftfield, my introduction to electronic music was all things City of Angels, I could properly pronounce (and spell) Underworld’s Dubnobasswithmyheadman from a techno-toddler age, and I’ve stopped myself short of hauling off and sniping Young American Primitive from eBay more times than I can count. Included in these raw roots and influences is a healthy dose of Orbital, who I still maintain walk on water, heal the sick and raise the dead. They have all the versatility of the ‘option’ key in Mac OS X. The masterpiece known as Halcyon + On + On remains a defining moment of electronic musicianship, the coup de grâce that transcended into mainstream, and inspired a whole new generation of artists, not to mention turning Kirsty Hawkshaw into an instant star. So you can understand why I was extremely pissed, cranky and upset to discover Orbital was disbanding in 2004, making the Blue Album a fantastic yet bittersweet finale.

Enter Long Range to the rescue. The side project of Phil Hartnoll along with Nick Smith, I’m ashamed as shit that I wasn’t keeping close enough tabs on their post-Orbital work. Granted Long Range just struck paydirt by having a track featured on Hybrid’s Soundsystem 01 and a remix on The Formula of Fear, their first full-length album Madness and Me was released back in 2007. Oddly enough it wasn’t Hybrid that turned me onto them — it was my attempts to track down the members of the Propellerheads trying to find out what they were up to, and I discovered that Will White had played drums for some of Long Range’s shows. It’s a side project that measures up well on paper, but these are some big shoes to fill.

All of the above is written to underscore my seriousness when I say Madness and Me actually makes up for the breaking up of Orbital. This disc leaves me so ridiculously dumbstruck, so mind-boggled at the ingenuity of sound design that, for the first time since Fluke, I’m content to chalk these sounds up to pure magic. I don’t want to know what they did. I don’t care what they did. I’m so engulfed by the completeness of the final product that I simply don’t desire to dissect it. It’s chilled out. It’s experimental. It’s breaky. It’s industrial. It’s epic. This is a finished, polished work without a touch of overproduction. I feel like I’m listening to Psykosonik’s Unlearn again for the first time. I just want to huddle in a corner and let my brain explode.

Like all things around here lately, life gets in the way and you get to the point of putting off everything you enjoy. To call this a new mix is laughable — I started compiling these tracks last year almost as soon as I’d finished with Return to Form. I didn’t actually get around to mixing everything until six months ago, then my hard drive crashed before I could put it up. During this time, my pal Kenny has been bugging the crap out of me to finish it. In honor of his one month-belated birthday (which I also managed to miss), I finally present a finished product that without Kenny’s stubbornness, probably would never have gotten around to existing.

Cheers. Happy birthday dude.

Running Time: 1:19:13
File Size: 181.4 MB @ 320 kbps

Tracklisting:

1. Pole Folder – In My Mind [Restart]
2. Underworld – Beautiful Burnout [Underworldlive]
3. Sasha – Mongoose [emFire]
4. Deadmau5 – Jaded [Mau5trap]
5. Pole Folder – Babylon Days (Dousk Yadda Mix) [Arctic Wave]
6. Hybrid – I Know (Keenan & Anderson Remix) [Distinct'ive]
7. Luke Chable Presents Quest – Skyline Road [68]
8. Glen Morrison – Hydrology [Mau5trap]
9. Radiohead – Motion Picture Soundtrack (Mat Zo Remix) [CDR]
10. Death Cab For Cutie – Marching Bands Of Manhattan (Blake Jarrell’s Pacha NYC Remix) [CDR]

It’s time to address the growing concern in why it’s been over a year since I last put up a mix set. In the interest of squarely placing the blame, it can be attributed primarily to laziness. I currently have two sets in the works (one that should have been released almost a year ago) and, as always, hope to have them up soon. But there are other underlying factors coming into play as well. These are not only inherent to the delay, but troublesome trends in electronic music that deserve to be addressed head-on.

The first is quality. The process of sonic craftsmanship has dwindled in electronic music, the only genre of music in history granted legitimacy without requiring an actual performance of any kind. You have limitless ability to rework, refine and experiment without requiring multiple takes, and with everything rooted in experimentalism there’s actually no limit to acceptable sound design and structure, so long as it’s coherent and well-organized. Your favorite floor barnstormer might actually be a time-corrected toilet flush coupled with your cat being picked up… with pliers. It was funny when Derrick May and Juan Atkins were doing it. The problem is, everyone else has figured this out. The application of logical extremes usually come with bleak forecasts and this was no exception. Like YouTube, on the fateful day they decided to add comments as a feature.

Genres are invariably flooded with a low signal-to-noise ratio, but it doesn’t make it any less offensive. The concept was once described to me by a friend as Lightning Strike Syndrome: When lightning strikes and an artist pioneers a new sound or approach, the masses flock to the point of impact waiting for lightning to strike again. Of course, it strikes someone elsewhere and the masses again flock to that very spot. What we actually have here is even worse: Artists feeding off the inevitable frenzy of bandwagon-hopping observers as they come rushing to witness the latest miracle. That’s not talent. That’s opportunism disguised as a Cult of Subgenre.

On the periphery, everyone understands this academically. It’s not until you review music on a regular basis or become addicted to the latest charts that you realize how much junk is really floating out there. Digital download shops have gone above and beyond the call of duty by aggregating all the trash, so we know where not to look. Granted it’s not possible to have every song in 200,000 be a revolutionary, groundbreaking piece of art — but it’s entirely possible (And should be expected) that artists push the limits of their knowledge, training, equipment and individual expression to bring us new and fresh ideas.

This is sadly lacking in a number of ways. What used to require the skill and invested time of jamming in the studio to find that perfect chemistry has been replaced by a series of formulaic builds and breakdowns, aided by out-of-the-box, widely-used sample packs in plug-and-play software kits. For an industry that grew up and sprung from rich, melody-driven sounds of 80’s-era FM synthesis and Yamaha DX7’s, today’s palettes are surprisingly insipid. There is rarely any original composition anymore, as preconstructed loops and patches do the heavy lifting, essentially leaving only arrangement and sound design to the mouse-clicking maestro.

And that leads us to our next problem: The electronic music umbrella as a whole is powered by technicians, not artists. Your classically-trained musicians represent a fraction of a percent of the industry in general, and even that’s not an actual guarantor that said musicians actually have any talent. It means they studied a lot of people who did. The remainder are programmers and geeks, Vulcans in a forum desperately in need of Scotty’s ingenuity. It’s no wonder these people turn to primes and fibonacci sequences for their cues on creativity — the inherent nature of analysis is counterintuitive to creative inspiration.

Similarly, the standard of skill has dropped to such a degree that DJs are now warp-marking their tracks to pass over that annoyance of actually having to mix two tracks together with different tempos. Today the trainwreck is poor beatmatching, tomorrow it’ll be out of key (One could argue it’s happening already). As is always the case, idiot-proofing breeds better idiots and someone will find a way to ground a set even after hitting play on the DAT and picking up a beer.

The standard of actual performance has become so low, hooks, movie samples and vocalists are picked up and arbitrarily exercised with reckless abandon. Breathy female vocalists kicked out of initial screening rounds of American Idol can suddenly become stars by setting the autotune, cranking up the vox and throwing up on the mic. Provided there’s some fresh-cut 4/4 beats and enough atmospheric reverb to wash the imperfections away, most people never know the difference and never care to find out. Vocals, as with innovative quality, are entirely optional and in fact, usually discouraged by minimalists huddling in the corner cursing any progression that threatens the high from their hallucinogens.

All said and done, it’s a whole whose sum of all parts actually results in a negative. The sad reality is that while some artists do genuinely handcraft their sounds and push the boundaries of experimentalism, they’re riding the only wave to shore. It’s never long before the hundred billion castaways looking for a trend come washing up behind them. And there are that many, because the output level in every subgenre has been pushed to its absolute maximum level of saturation.

The recent flurry of pressure to produce mixes and charts on a weekly and monthly basis have obscured the most important point of DJing in the first place: To create a unique, enjoyable, sonic collage of your favorite works. Any ding dong can stitch together two tracks at 132 bpm with friendly leads. The art comes from the era of the mixtape: The careful selection and order of tracks, the messages and emotions they convey, the joy of creating new combinations in transitions. A mix is personal, because it represents the DJ’s taste and conviction to share with others. Nick Warren’s Back to Mine was special not solely because of the fantastic tracks, but because it represented a over a decade’s worth of his favorite obscure and forgotten works. It was a 79-minute journey into time, and a view into a window we’d never known existed.

That’s the standard, and it should be upheld. Whether the frantic obsession with digital mixes ceases gradually over time or increases in intensity, my goal here will always be to contribute more signal and less noise. My mixes represent a compact, niche sound in electronic music that others may find droll and uninteresting, but if I can find more joy in hearing 14 songs together than separately in their respective, unmixed forms, then that mix is ready for prime time. Anything less would be a waste of a wait.

Chicane needs no introduction, I’m positive everyone has listened to and adores Far From the Maddening Crowds and Behind the Sun. I’m not here to reiterate those points, in fact I’m now here to plead the case 2007’s Somersault. Widely panned by critics and fans alike, it fell way short of expectations after a leak destroyed the (also detested) 2003 album Easy to Assemble. What the hell is Nick doing? We want Ibiza ambiance, not Deleri-pop! Right? Q Music hated this disc the way I hate Rob Schneider and Andy Dick, or the way Pitchfork hated Shine On by Jet. (Take a second to click that link. It’s okay, I’ll wait.) Even Virgin Media ripped it to shreds. It wasn’t pretty:

Somersault – which opens with recent Tom Jones-led single Stoned In Love – is probably best appreciated if you can associate every song on it with a wonderful emotional moment on some terrace or dancefloor in the Balearics. Without it, it strays into overproduced muzak, neatly ignoring everything exciting that’s now happening in dance music. Pilfering beats from UNKLE albums released nearly ten years ago and chopping up guitars and plaintive vocals over the top does not make for innovation.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think these people harbored sadistic grudges against Nick Bracegirdle because of his tumultuous history with labels. That may not be entirely off-base, because UNKLE has never sounded good enough to be pilfered in the first place and these vocals are far from plaintive. Here’s the deal: On the surface Somersault is not what we expected from our favorite chillout artist of the last decade. It’s not the source material’s fault that it alienates the Ibiza trance subgenre with nowhere to go. It’s music, for crying out loud. It doesn’t need any other labels except Flippin’ Good. That’s right, anyone who insists otherwise can bite me.

Rooted in this disc first of all, are two astute rescues from the ill-fated Easy to Assemble disc: ‘Spirit’ with Jewel and the delightfully lush ‘Arizona’ — though the disgustingly-addictive ‘In Praise of the Sun’ perished in the fire. Second of all, with Bryan Adams tapped out (It was only a matter of time, right?) a new singer Jack Starks stepped up and performed on no less than five of the album’s tracks, essentially making him part of the band. It’s quite similar in dynamic to Hybrid’s addition of Adam Taylor for Morning Sci-Fi, only without the trainwreck and with the added benefit of Starks being able to hold a note without going flat. He’s actually quite good. ‘Come Tomorrow’ and ‘Nothing’ respectfully stand their ground as pop-trance harbingers, while ‘Far Away From You’ is filled with so much epicity I was able to loop it for all 40 minutes of my 4-mile run around the lake yesterday.

This isn’t rocket science. You don’t have to stuff 10⁶ layers into your tracks and be a part of the next post-rock electro-punk uber-indie hipster movement. There’s plenty of that already, and if your name isn’t Sigur Rós, Hammock or Ulrich Schnauss, you have no business tarnishing the book written by Slowdive anyway. The work on Somersault far exceeds that of its material peers on Tiesto’s Elements of Life and Armin van Buuren’s Imagine. It’s not fair to burden Chicane with the expectations of past works, but more germane to assess the work in the context of its vision and goals. In that regard, it succeeds admirably.