Cat Number: FABRIC114
Label: Fabric Records
Info correct on: 20/5/2011

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A fantastic mix CD from Jackmaster, aka Numbers club / collective member and DJ Magazine’s Breakthrough DJ of 2010, Jack Revill (or to us in record shop land 'grumpy Jack from Rub-A-Dub' ;-)). For their 57th release Fabric take a peek into the Glaswegian mischief-maker’s eclectic record bags.

The mix itself brings a taste of the relentless nature of the Numbers dancefloor, where the parties are fast, frantic and intense. With a tracklist running to almost 30 tracks in just 70 minutes, they come short and sharp, running the whole gamut of what’s considered ‘party music’, from Detroit techno classics to the orphaned children of garage, dubstep and grime, the only thing that stays consistent is the upbeat tempo. Kicking things off with a slice of classic electro from The Fantastic Aleems, we head straight into classic ‘hands in the air’ territory with the Inner City anthem "Big Fun". For someone who constantly talks up his love for 90s dance classics, or the music that most resonates from his childhood, it’s no surprise to hear Kim English’s soaring vocals on the proto-garage "Nite Life" emerge out of the robot funk of Model 500. There’s a nod to Jamaica and in turn their grime compatriots down south, with an MC name checking the whole crew on the unreleased calypso bounce of Geiom’s "2 4 6" which swiftly rolls along taking in Addison Groove’s juke-influenced groove. The middle section is the peak time, full strobe moment presented as a kind of rave sandwich, with the comedy Miami Bass of Splack Pack as the x-rated bread while Mad Mike brings an unusually sensitive side with a cut of euphoric piano house and a Wookie remix leading into the Todd Terry jacker "Can You Feel It?".

It’s the sound of 90s rave as channelled through the mind of someone who grew up in the online world with access to all the disparate strands of hardcore influenced music, from the neo-NRG of Fix to frenetic ghetto tech, weaving all the influences into each other with a single-minded purpose, for people to be able to dance without feeling guilty about enjoying moments of unexpected nostalgia. The mix ends with a trio of cuts with AFX’s unsettling acid squelch melded into the jerky vocal patterns from Skepta’s "Doin’ It Again" and finishing up on a high note with that most unexpected of danceable singles, the track which exposed Radiohead’s unashamed electronic genius, the alienation anthem of "Idioteque".

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