- Made up of 2 DJ's, Jimmy K Tel and Matt Brown, Sancho Panza represent the percussive and deeper side of house, breakbeat and electro and showcase this on their new mix CD - Float - the long awaited follow up to Carnival from 2002 which earned the title of "Compilation Of The Month" from UK Muzik magazine. The double CD compilation features an uplifting dancefloor friendly mix, labelled Up and a deeper chillout mix, labelled Away.
CD 1. Up
Up starts off with 2 minutes of chatter - why do people still do that? Comedy relief? Seriously, lose the wack intros and get into the music! Where's The Tape by Triangle Orchestra salvaged what could have been a crap CD and fills the ears with a nice percussive groove, jazzy keyboards and a really melodic bass. Bass Check by Slope continues on with the bass line workout with Sancho Panza cleanly dropping it in.
Organic Audio get the breaky beats going with Good To Go - another slice of funky breaks from the renowned Tummy Touch label - gruff male vocals on top of a crossover disco house beat with Organic Audio pulling off nice hooks on the synthesiser. Street Corner Symphony explore a 70's funk blaxploitation theme on Symphonic Tonic complete with funky horn arrangements - nice!
Collectively known as Slide, Laidback and 12Tree provide the Definition of Sound sampling Flow turning Pass The Vibes from an indie hip hop tune into a funky house/breaks groove. Electracoustic's Libertease gets remixed by Meat Katie into a deep house breaks affair - you can hear the trademark Katie sounds - deep techy basslines, and percussive breaks moving the Up CD into harder beats territory.
Freaks remix Deep Touch's Dreams into an electro/booty affair before Up climaxes with the disco classic Stomp by The Brothers Johnson - Jimmy K-Tel's all time favourite top tune.
CD 2: Away
Away explores the laidback chilled out side of house and electro and kicks off with the Latin flavoured Temptation & Lies by Brett Johnson - sing-along vocals sitting on top of a melodic rhythm and bassline - a good way to kick off the CD. Ewan Pearson's remix of Seelenluft's Manilla shows off a little retro disco flavour and is recieving it's fair share of inclusions in various compilations. Ewan Pearson returns later for more electro techy madness on his remix of Sudden Rush by Erlend Oye
Philly by DJ T starts off with a laidback vibe before breaking out into a bassy percussive bridge in the middle then returning back to the laidback vibe at the beginning - putting the synthesisers and string samples to good effect.
Crossing the borders between electro, breaks, and house are Chicken Lips remixing Soul Mekanik's If U Nu. For those who have heard Chicken Lips' He Not In will immediately notice the trademark Chicken Lips sound - electro beats, hard basslines and echoey synth stabs, yet being able to keep rear-ends bouncing with plenty of percussion.
Brett Johnson returns with We're Gonna Move before the Freaks come out with Where Were You When The Lights Went Out? - the big single from their Man Who Lived Underground LP.
Float is a nicely mixed compilation of good tunes whether they be house, electro or breaks. Well recommended for those who can't stand commercial club anthems and prefer a mature take on dance music. As good as this is, I personally find the Unabombers compilation from 2002 to be much better moving from hip hop, to soul, to funk, to disco all the way to house in the one CD.