The latest DJ-Kicks album is a somewhat trippy affair. Russian techno DJ Nina Kraviz has taken the reigns on this latest instalment, and she has actively strayed a little from her standard DJing style.
Expect less jacking and more dreamy soundscapes and spoken vocals, suspended in a way that creates an unnerving sense of immovable inertia. The feel of this mix is defined by the disorientating acapella by Egotrip that opens it ("Here your horizons have no limitations, for this... Is you dream world"). At times tracks are cycled through quickly, just to create a momentary mood - the submarine-like sonar from Prototype 909's Atma, for example - before being layered into the tracks that surround them. These are blended in to create a remarkably cohesive sense of progression despite some variety in the styles taken in throughout the mix.
The David Bowie featuring Truth, by Goldie, marks an early surprise, Bowie's vocals seeming to loom out of the fog of techno that proceeds it. The beat-less track is woven into the track that follows, and it is a trick the album repeats. Acapellas are dropped over tracks to build on the disembodied feel of the album - trippy and, in Kraviz's own words, "going nowhere"... A mood inspired by late nights listening to pirate radio, or the sense of sounds being broadcast from space. Tracks like Icelandic producer Exos' Nuclear Red Guard feel alien enough to make the mood stick, full of harsh radio-like bleeps like a 70s take on the future .
Kraviz's mix is a deep, immersive experience, full of obscure favourites she has selected from the past and a number of exclusives from her label (including three she created her self). It is not going to be for everyone, but for fans of her music, and this style of music, it is an experience worth hearing.
