Having your very own DJ-Kicks issue marks something like the accolade in the electronic music scene. Once you got the chance to curate your very own compilation for label !K7 your officially one of the big ones. In the case of Spanish producer JOHN TALABOT it’s not like we weren’t aware of this fact before. But still, his selection provides a great mixture of various songs, proving once again that this very sampler series is one of the finest in the world of electronic music and that TALABOT himself is the man of the hour.
FOUR TET, MAYA JANE COLES, HOT CHIP, APPARAT – the list of previous participants is long and famous and just like them TALABOT presents a mix that sums up pretty much his idea of electronic music and a good compilation. Every artist got its own idea on how to design the mix. Andy Butler from HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR f.e. took the chance to give a lesson in classical house music on his DJ-Kicks. The Spanish producer now keeps it more traditional. He combines his taste for grooving house and dance beats with a certain, let’s call it, IDM-appeal. Just like on his critically acclaimed 2012 debut album Fin, JOHN TALABOT mixes funky four-to-the-floor rhythms with tropical sounds and tiny electronic experiments. He’s interested in combining the addictive beat of a dance track with a certain musicality in terms of electronic sounds. Fin was about this and his DJ-Kicks follows this concept.
The selected artists for the compilation include ANDY STOTT, AXEL BOMAN, MOTOR CITY DRUM ENSEMBLE and TALABOT‘s good friend PIONAL. While starting quite slow and mysterious it slowly paces up and turns into a deep club experience. And only the best of the best understand how to create this process in a way the listener does not actually notice the change. It all flows in a very natural way, taking us deeper into the understanding of the sound and vision of JOHN TALABOT.
His DJ-Kicks surely is a club music compilation but one that you’ll also highly enjoy at home or on the train. Sometimes at night with your headphones on and totally focussed on the music. You can’t have deep and grooving house beats and a certain emotional depth behind them without sounding too pretentious. One again, JOHN TALABOT proves why he’s one of electronic music’s currently finest. But, well, we’ve already told you that at the beginning, didn’t we?
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