- The early Eskimo Recordings albums are a hugely enjoyable balance between madness and fun. For the first three volumes of the series, The Glimmers pulled together selections that neither took themselves too seriously nor minded if something came from yesterday or yesteryear. You got acid house going into James Brown, 'Your Love' next to the Erotic Drum Band and Ray Mang sharing a vinyl with War. It was weird and wonderful. The change began with Eskimo 4 when they began to mix the albums and shift more towards a confused disco/disco noir sound. Although Eskimo 5 starts off with belters like Primal Scream's 'Loaded', which flows beautifully, thanks to re-edited percussion, into the fantastically overblown 'Slave to the Rhythm' by Shirley Bassey, the change in their sound broadly continues and is even accentuated. The album suffers for it.
Eskimo 5 just isn't as enjoyable as their previous compilations. Whilst the first few cuts are decent, muscular Italo/odd disco, the back nine of the 19 tracks here are forgettable. For The Glimmers, a pair who normally have such cracking taste, it's somewhat alarming to hear (and say) that the album is, overall, average. It seems that instead of following their own path, the duo are having a bash at the trendy cosmic sound, which they don't quite get right. Perhaps most disappointing is that the crazy tracks, once a highlight, aren't bonkers in an endearing way: they're just stupid. 'Fata Morgana' by Dissidenten sounds like a Latvian Eurovision entry from the 70s, and 'Somewhere in Arabia' by The Caravan is a baffling, woeful finale.
Bearing in mind this is the Glimmers' twentieth commercial mix, they can be forgiven if occasionally their mixes aren’t top drawer. But after a disappointing effort for the Fabric series, perhaps it's time they looked back to the spirit of June 2000 when they put together the first Eskimo comp. It was a riot back then, you know.
Tracklist01 Primal Scream – Loaded
02 Shirley Bassey – Slave To The Rhythm
03 Venus Gang – Love To Fly
04 LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends
05 Herb Alpert – Bullish
06 Mac Attack – The Art Of Drums
07 Dissidenten – Fata Morgana
08 Pop Dell´Arte – Querelle
09 Kenneth Bager – Fragment One...And I Kept Hearing
10 The Glimmers – Kiss Me
11 Cultural Vibe – Ma Foom Bey
12 Eugene Record – I Dont Mind
13 Pleasure Pump – Fantasize Me
14 Das Etwas – Go Ahead
15 Patrick Coutin – J´aime Regarder Les Files
16 Trio – Da Da Da
17 Tussle – Warning
18 Dachambo – Conga La Gotta
19 The Caravan – Somewhere In Arabia