A Pleasant But Inconsistent Mix
dimitriis | 05/12/2004
(3 out of 5 stars)
"This FabricLive is mixed by a legend of modern fusion music. Nitin Sawhney has released great albums, namely Beyond Skin, Displacing The Priest and his most recent Human. To my knowledge this FabricLive is his second compilation to date.
And it contains some excellent tracks... Koop's jazzy and atmospheric Relaxin' At Club F****n, which opens this FabricLive and is mixed somehow abruptly with Eastern Eyes; Nitin's own classic Homelands in two different versions - both excellent; 4 Hero's remix of Long; Jazzanova's excellent remix of We Who Are Not As Others. However, something that these tracks have in common is that they are well known and can be found in numerous compilations. Another weakness is that the mixing is not seamless with most transitions being done by simply fading out the current track and fading in the next. Previous FabricLive compilations offer outstanding mixing by the likes of DJ Spinbad, J Majik, Plump DJ's etc. Personally, I find the second half of the mix to be the most interesting. There is a transition from Nu-Jazz/Broken Beat to Drum n Bass and in the end, Nitin slows the tempo, by throwing his own Beyond Skin and Hymn 2 by downtempo master Craig Armstrong.
It is definitely a good effort, but when compared to previous FabricLive sets (special mention goes to James Lavelle, John Peel, Plump DJ's, Jacques Lu Cont, J Majik, DJ Spinbad), Nitin Sawhney's mix shows its weaknesses. 3.5 stars"