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Review: Jack Foley
THE Blue Room - on Radio 1, every Saturday between 5am and 7am
on 97 - 99FM - started in January 2002 as a three-hour segue of
music.
Its principle aim was to flag up the best in strangedays sounds,
and recruited the expertise of chillout Djs, Chris Coco and Rob
da Bank, to discover music that 'sounds quite weird but seems
right at five o'clock in the morning'.
Hence, it isn't just about chillout, and sending people to sleep,
and it isn't confined to any one genre. Yet it does have a huge
cult following and is always worth catching for any bleary-eyed
nightowl, or early morning riser, who needs a little sound massage
at that point of the day.
It only seemed natural, therefore, that the show should give
rise to a compilation CD, which has been spread across two-discs
- one for each Dj.
The result is pure musical satisfaction, a quite beautiful, and
effortlessly beguiling, collection of remixes, that provide the
perfect remedy for any furrowed brow, or stressed out day.
The records chosen are an eclectic bunch, some of which you will
have heard and even know well, and others which you will be baying
to hear more of once they have finished.
Calexico's Not Even Stevie Nicks is an excellent example
of the latter, a Flaming Lips-inspired fusion of folk and space-rock,
that contains a quite haunting vocal, while Ikon's orchestral,
The Dove, is the type of track you just know you have heard
somewhere before, without ever being able to remember where.
Needless to say, The Polyphonic Spree crop up, with The Bees
remix of their Light and Day/Reach for the Sun single,
while the Flaming Lips' All We Have Is Now brings Chris
Coco's CD1 to a suitably downtempo, but classy, close.
In fact, CD1 rarely puts a foot wrong, while CD2 follows in similarly
grand fashion, effortlessly appealing to leftfield listeners with
its soothing beats and slightly more uptempo collection of records,
that includes the likes of the Psychonauts, Lazyboy (featuring
Lee 'Scratch' Perry) and Blue Mar Ten.
And a chillout/5am style crossover just wouldn't be complete
without The Cure's Lullaby, which fits in perfectly with
the lesser-known material around it.
The best track, however, is The Orb's opener, Blue Room,
which has to rate as one of the greatest leftfield tracks of all
time, with its breathtakingly simple guitar sample, and genuinely
chilled beats.
At over two and a half hours, The Blue Room is a genuinely
long and pleasing listen, and one which looks likely to broaden
the appeal of several of the artists it features so strongly.
The show itself has now accumulated such a huge following, that
people turned out in their droves to catch the DJs' set at Glastonbury
this year, so expect the CD to be massive.
It is, quite possibly, the chillout compilation of the year -
even though we're not supposed to call it that ;o)
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- Track listing:
The Blue Room CD1 Mixed by Chris Coco
1. The Orb - Blue Room (CocoDaBank Remix)
2. Ulrich Schnauss - Crazy For You
3. cane141 - Sugarfoot
4. Ralph Myerz & The Jack Herren Band - You Never Come Closer
5. Calexico - Not Even Stevie Nicks
6. Ikon - The Dove
7. Static - Inside Your Heaven
8. The Polyphonic Spree - Light And Day/Reach For The Sun (The
Bees Remix)
9. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - On The Low
10. Moly - Me And Lucifer
11. My Morning Jacket - Phone Went West
12. Ja-Man Allstars - West Man Skank
13. Chris Coco - Revolution
14. Ultrafox - Cloakroom Girl
15. Ladytron - Cracked LCD
16. Erlend Oye - Ghost Trains
17. Cassetteboy - Bring Back Cloaks
18. Mark Thibideau - Distance Between
19. The Flaming Lips - All We Have Is Now
The Blue Room CD2 Mixed by Rob da Bank
1. Hubtone - Seeing Things
2. Chungking - Making Music
3. Harpers Bizarre - Witchi Tai To
4. Psychonauts - Hips For Scotland
5. Peven Everett - They So Cold
6. Impossible Beings - Dois Pólos
7. DJ DSL - Happy Bear
8. Lazyboy feat. Lee "Scratch" Perry - Penguin Rock
(Manasseh Meets the Upsetter Remix)
9. Annie - I Will Get On
10. Kraak en Smaak - Money In The Bag
11. Putsch '79 - Steam Engine
12. Uusi Fantasia - Lattialla Taas
13. Rise Ashen - Second Wind
14. Plej - Lay Of The Land
15. Spiller - Cry Baby (Röyksopp's Målselves Memorabilia
Mix)
16. Blu Mar Ten - The Feeling
17. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
18. The Cure - Lullaby
19. The Orb - Blue Room (CocodaBank Remix)
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