- Cute & Cult is Agoria’s first mix CD, and it comes at you like a bolt out of the blue. In the first ten minutes the DJ somehow manages to navigate his way from Angelo Badalamenti’s ‘Mulholland Drive’ music through to Radiohead’s ‘Idioteque’, by way of Carl Craig and Ricardo Villalobos, without making the progression sound in any way contrived or unnatural.
Anyone who likes inventiveness in DJing will find plenty here to keep their attention, and as Agoria moves on to a techno landscape the beats sharpen up and the riffs get stronger. Agoria’s own ‘Les Beaux Jours’, an exclusive for this mix, has a wonderfully metallic sound, and while The Age Of Love may seem a lazy choice on paper it actually sounds better positioned in the middle, flanked by Matthew Jonson and the pounding drum of 69’s ‘Filter King’.
At which point comes the masterstroke, Iggy Pop’s ‘Nightclubbing’ working its way in for an unexpected appearance, sounding brilliant with its klaxon-like backing. It forms an effective break, so that when the techno music reappears it gains even more power, and the cuts that follow from Swayzak, Basic Channel and Anthony Rother take on a sharper dancefloor edge, leading up to another anthem in ‘LFO’. Agoria doesn’t stop there, ending with a solo piano rendition of ‘Strings Of Life’ from Francesco Tristano, an improvised number that works up to the main riff in full, the lights seemingly coming up on the dancefloor as it ends.
Mixed completely live, this is an excellent, provocative set that challenges a lot of genres along the way and is never less than rewarding on its journey.