Rating:
Genre:
Electronica
Release Date: 11/24/2008
A
Metro Area Fabric mix might have been timed more shrewdly prior to 2008, before younger folks into underground dance music -- a significant chunk of the London club's label audience, for sure, if not all of it -- began to move on from the Italo disco and post-disco R&B
Morgan Geist and
Darshan Jesrani had been creating for years. In some quarters, though, the oddball stuff is as eternal as the relatively narrow scope of
Little Steven's Underground Garage, and no one is more adept at serving it up than these two. After an impossibly corny
MA voice-over atop a woozy slice of Bollywood cheese ("That was the horn that
Fabric gave us instead of our advance money!"), all manner of synthesizer and drum machine-driven post-disco follows. Naturally, the sweet spot is in the early '80s, with early "alternative" staples --
Ministry's
"Work for Love," Heaven 17's
"Penthouse and Pavement" -- dispersed between black radio smashes like
Gary's Gang's
"Makin' Music" and
Midway's
"Set It Out" (the latter produced by
Brownsville Station refugee
Bruce Nazarian;
Little Steven would disapprove). The relatively obscure nuggets are abundant:
Mascara's
Jellybean-mixed
"Baja," Wiretap's
"X-Rated Man," Atmosphere's
"Swede's Scandal," and
Voyage's
"Souvenirs," all featuring plump synthetic basslines and awesomely syrupy melodies, would have been at home within
Geist's
Unclassics series and mix. A handful of later selections adds seamless range: the
Pal Joey-produced
"I Can Feel It," with an assist from
Samson & Delilah's
"I Can Feel Your Love Slippin' Away" (another
MA favorite), the "Acid Rainforest Mix" of
Plez's tribal house jam
"Can't Stop," and a track from
Baby Oliver (
Geist's most twisted production alias). One of the set's best transitions is saved for last, where
Première Classe's goofily regal
"Poupée Flash" snap-locks into
Devo's
"Freedom of Choice" -- an all-too-fitting finale from an American DJ team in 2008.
~Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
;)
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