Album Review: FabricLive 47 - various artists mixed by Toddla T

Broadly speaking Fabric albums can be divided into two categories - thoughtful and carefully considered or balls-out party starters. Toddla T's mix, perhaps unsurprisingly, falls into the latter. FabricLive 47 is a mix of grime, breakbeat, dancehall, dubstep, house and, occasionally, pop.

As BlackPlastic mentioned in our review of the recent Scratch Perverts' Beatdown album there is sometimes a tendency to get caught up in the 'now' without any concern for the actual quality of the tracks. There seem to be plenty of positive reviews forBeatdown, which suggests BlackPlastic's opinions aren't shared by all, but we would simply say: this is a far better postcard overview of dance music in 2009 than that album.

The difference is that the tracks generally feel much more like they will stand the test of time and whilst the mixing is perhaps a little less creative it's ultimately the tunes that count, right? Right...

So Toddla T has triumphed by keeping things fresh her, really chopping up the genres. Hip-hop on Stone's 'Amen' (featuring Roots Manuva) melts straight into a jump-up drum 'n' bass track Toddla creates by slamming several tracks together...

...And FabricLive 47 is at its best when it takes this approach, worrying less about what it should be and more about what it could be. There is the tongue in cheek soulful pop-dub take on Human League's 'Love Action' from Philly and then the tribal Caveman remix of Duffy's 'Stepping Stone' at the start of the album, or the soulful broken beat house of Skream's remix of Toddla T's own 'Rebel' and the blissed out Caspa mix of Deadmau5's 'I Remember' winding things up at the end. Sandwiched in the middle you have the likes of the aggressive hard-house hip-hop mash-up of of tracks (made from Bart B More & Diplo Vs Bashy's 'Millionaire Bingo', Bashy's 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' and Bingo Players' 'Get Up (Diplo Mix)') and Sticky and Lady Chann's cheeky 'Sticky Situation'.

FabricLive 47 may not exactly justify Toddla T's hype, but it certainly goes some way to explain it - it may not be sophisticated or that carefully considered but it sure is fun.

BP x

Toddla T's FabricLive 47 is released on 17 August - available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].

On the topic of Lady Chann - in advance of her performance at FabricLive this Friday for The Heatwaves Funky Bashment takeover of room three we also have two tracks from Lady Chann available for download.

First up is Lady Chann & Sticky's 'Sticky Situation' as a free MP3 download - Download 'Sticky Situation' [right click, save as].

Also, made exclusively for this event, we have a medley from Lady Chann & Busy Signal - Download 'Medley' [right click, save as].

Single Review: In For The Kill - La Roux

La Roux rose to fame recently following the appearance of the catchy 'Quicksand' on Kitsuné Maison Compilation 6 and since then they have been garnering significant attention, both of the blogger and mainstream variety.

Now on a major label (Polydor, part of Universal), 'In For The Kill' is the follow up to 'Quicksand' and, if we are brutally honest, it's kind of more of the same. It has the same simple Casio keyboard meets garage-beat sound only with a slightly catchier chorus. BlackPlastic hates to say it but the recent adulation heaped on this band smacks of a certain emperor's affection for nudey outfits in public... And yet they even seem to have made it onto the daytime radio playlists. An album full of this doesn't exactly excite.

What is worth checking out though is what Skream have done here on their 'Let's Get Ravey' mix. Giving the whole thing a dub-step rework gives that vocal more room to breath (even if the sound quality on said vocal seems off, at least on BlackPlastic's iTunes download) but what really takes this mix to the next level is the drum 'n' bass break that hits at the end. It's pure romanticism, a love letter to early nineties rave.

Available at Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3

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