A bit of history might be required here. All the information I'm revealing in this paragraph comes courtesy of the notes in the book accompanying the disc, so it may be incomplete, but here's the gist: the two mad geniuses who comprise the group Coldcut, Matt Black & Jonathan More, started a radio show called "Solid Steel" some 13 years ago. The basic idea was for DJs to grab their favorite records, no matter what genre, put them on turntables, and get to spinning and mixing. The end result? Pretty spectacular. They recently got the idea in their heads to release albums that were produced in the spirit of this radio show - take a huge variety of songs, mix them together, conquer the music world. The end result? So far, pretty spectacular.

If you want to get a free sample of what Solid Steel is about, Ninja Tune's website contains a ten-episode archive of Solid Steel shows, and if you're at all into hiphop, DJ culture, or electronica, I'm pretty sure you'll find yourself spending hours there. The address is http://www.ninjatune.net - just follow the shiny link to Solid Steel and get Real Player fired up. Apparently, they broadcast live on the web from BBC London Live's site - http://www.bbc.co.uk/londonlive - but I've been too lazy to check that out. And finally, if you can actually get BBC London Live's actual radio station on 94.9FM, hit that on Mondays, Midnight to 2AM GMT and you'll actually get to listen to the thing using that archaic device called "the radio".

I'm halfway-tempted to just list the tracks included on the album, let you pick out the two or three that would immediately make you say "hell yeah!", and cut this review off there so that I can get to the much more important business of sleeping, but some of these tracks are every bit as unheard of as other tracks are undeniable classics. So I'll provide a list and then zoom in on the more obscure songs for greater detail.


1. "Solid Steel Theme"
2. Jeru The Damaja - "Come Clean" / The Cinematic Orchestra - "Channel One Suite"
3. Neotropic - "Beached"
4. Ice - "X1 (Underdog Mix)"
5. X-ecutioners - "Musica Negra (Black Music acapella)"
6. David Shire - "The Taking Of Pelham 123 (end title)"
7. Solid Steel Intermission: Ray Bradbury - "Marionettes Inc."
8. Mr. Scruff - "Ug" / DJ Vadim & Motion Man - "The Terrorist (acapella)"
9. Peshay - "Miles From Home (Underdog Mix)"
10. The Beat - "Mirror In The Bathroom" / Mask - "Square Off"
11. Sabu Martinez - "Hotel Alyssa - Sousse, Tunisia"
12. Dominique Dalcan - "Ritmo 2"
13. Flying Fish - "Lucy's Song"
14. The Commodores - "Assembly Line" / Most Wanted - "Calm Down (acapella)"
15. David McCallum - "House Of Mirrors"
16. Solid Steel School Break: "Let's Play Drums!"
17. Blackalicious - "Alphabet Aerobics (Cut Chemist 2.5 Minute Workout)"
18. Four Tet - "Glasshead"
19. Herbie Hancock - "Nobu"
20. Link - "Amenity"
21. Art Of Noise - "Moments In Love"
22. Boards Of Canada - "The Colour Of The Fire"
23. Faze O - "Riding High"


Yeah, that's a Ray Bradbury monologue in there, read by Leonard Nimoy, no less. And it's accompanied by some amazing tunage of various sources that aren't credited but set the tone perfectly. That has to rank as THE strangest damn choice anyone could possibly make when attempting to create a DJ mix of dance songs, but the bottom line is that it's very enjoyable to listen to.

And that's what makes this album stand out in the realm of DJ mixes. I still have to give DJ Spooky massive props for his "Under The Influence" release from earlier this year, but in reality, the best thing I can say about it is that his taste in music is flawless. But heck, even I can snag about 20 of my favorite tunes, string them together, and maybe have them overlap over each other for ten seconds at a time, and Spooky didn't do a great deal more than that for the majority of his album. Even my all-time favorite electronica artist, Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto, could be accused of the same thing - taking great tunes, and just playing them. Now that still makes for a very enjoyable listen, but DJ Food and DK are unhappy with leaving any of these songs untouched. The difference is pretty noticable, and in my opinion raises the bar for this sort of style of album production.

If you're like me, and you've never heard the songs "Lucy's Song", "Calm Down", and "Assembly Line", then you will have an impossible time figuring out where the first of those three tunes ends and the next begins, because they're all interweaved with each other in such a way that tracks #13 and #14 almost become one prolonged track.

Any hiphop head who can think back to the years before the thug/playa mentality took over and nearly ruined the genre will instantly recognize "Come Clean" by Jeru The Damaja, and will probably have at least one of the verses memorized. But the combination of it with "Channel One Suite" turns out to be perhaps a perfect remix, because it sounds even better than the original, while not losing any of the original's flavor. You might be tempted to complain that the dripping-water sounds are overshadowed too much by the guitar riff, but then again, the beat is even harder and dirtier than before, which is saying quite a bit.

They may differentiate between tracks #4 and #5 on the listing, but I'm not sure why. The beat of "X1" by Ice is actually continued throughout "Musica Negra" by The X-ecutioners, and the combo works very well indeed. It's a militant rap verse set to a nasty, downright brutal industrial beat, and it makes me wonder why artists from both genres don't attempt to meld the two sounds more often. Indeed, it hearkens back to the early-90s sound of Public Enemy, which for me is as perfect a sound as I've ever heard.

If you read my review of Ninja Tune's ten-year-anniversary compilation, "Xen Cuts" (you probably didn't, you heathen), then you know that I have an undying love for the tune "Ug" by Mr. Scruff. But all I could think of while listening to it was "this beat is crying out, begging, pleading for a dope rhyme". Now this beat's prayers have been answered, as Motion Man rips the mic via his verses from "The Terrorist". Yeah, I know, really unfortunate title, blah blah blah - all I can say is this song was written way back when rappers comparing themselves to terrorists was less of a political statement and more of a way of just saying they're slammin'. And yes, Motion Man is slamming. Then the beat switches up radically to Peshay's "Miles From Home", a drum-n-bass tune that exhibits noticably more funk and soul than most artists in that genre tend to do, and it manages to work every bit as well as "Ug" for serving as the backdrop for a rap verse.

If there's one screw-up to be found here, it would have to be with track #10. The Beat's "Mirror In The Bathroom" is so damn good that it should have probably just been left alone, but they saw fit to combine a very lack-luster drum-n-bass rhythm from Mask's "Square Off", and the result is something less than impressive. "Square Off" uses that one drum riff that you've heard in approximately 95% of all d-n-b songs (most notably in J-Majik's "Your Sound"), and it's only distinguishing feature is that it seems to be played at 4000 beats-per-minute. I don't get this, but even then, the strength of "Mirror In The Bathroom" is such that I also don't find myself complaining that much.

Blackalicious should need no introduction, because their album "Nia" is the best ('best' is italicized and emboldened for twice the effect, because I mean it twice as much as usual) rap album since Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth's "Mecca & The Soul Brother" - which was produced in 1992. Yeah, that's nine straight years of hiphop that Chief X-Cel and Gift Of Gab overshadowed in one fell swoop. But here, Gift hooks up with Cut Chemist from Jurassic 5 to produce a very amusing, almost skit-like song where Gift goes through the entire alphabet, creating rhymes out of alliteration.

"imitators idolize, i intimidate / in an instant i arise in an irate state / juiced on my jams like jeri curls, jocking joints / justly it's just me writing my journals"

He does that from A to Z. And while it may only be a 'novelty rap', it sure beats out Redman's novelty rap of using the word 'motherf***er' at the end of every line (in his 2001 song, cleverly entitled 'Motherf***er'). But it speeds up from a fairly slow tempo to a ridiculously fast one, not only so that your jaw will drop at Gift's untouchable microphone skills, but also so that the song will flow perfectly smoothly into Four Tet's "Glasshead", one of those songs with those groovy basslines and soulful trumpets that would be right at home on the soundtrack for a James Bond flick.

And if that wasn't enough, Faze O's undeniable classic "Riding High" concludes the mix. (Hiphop fools who aren't up on their knowledge of soul/R&B classics might better recognize this as "that song EPMD sampled for their classic 'Please Listen To My Demo'".) Does it get more simultaneously funky and romantic than this? Didn't think so.

So my humble advice to anyone is to snag this album if you're at all down with DJ culture. Or hiphop and electronica or soul or...you get the picture, I hope. This rollercoaster of sound doesn't stop until well after you've screamed yourself hoarse (this time out of pleasure as opposed to fright).

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Hanging With Friends