Search - Layo & Bushwacka :: Feels Closer (Dig)

Oh, What A Feelin'

Mark Eremite | Seoul, South Korea | 12/20/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Layo (Paskin) and Bushwacka! (Matthew Benjamin) are one of the tightest DJ duos to hit the dance scene in the past decade. They meld breaks and soothing, artfully-chosen samples with a subliminal ease, creating a body of work with enough skill and diversity to appeal to wide range of house and techno tastes. This, their third album, is no exception. It is a mosaic of digital box pop, opera, electro synth, and funk, all of it built on a bedrock of soul-heavy jazz.



Unlike a lot of albums of this sort, you probably won't be cherry-picking favorites out of the line-up. This CD plays like a night at the club, with thematically unique tracks dove-tailing each other with the grace of an expert dancer slipping from a salsa step to a swing beat.



The most generally appealing segment of the album comes in the first three tracks. "Life2Live" is an unapologetic deep house cover, with veins of throbbing wire, a song that is as grin-inducingly silly as it is danceable (and hardcore clubbers might recognize, in the phantomesque vocals, the voice of Chicago producer, Green Velvet). The second and title track leads in with a shadowy thrum that is lit by incomparable percussive talent by the legendary Mino Cinelu, creating an ambient hunk of sound that is sunny and eerie in equal measures. This is followed without fanfare by "Ride the Train," a clappin', snappin' song inspired by the 80's favorite, "Steppin' Out."



Don't misunderstand. This record isn't what one would call a dance compilation. It's a pastiche of art in sound, and although much of it is groove-worthy, there's more atmosphere than there is dig-down dancing. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially when you have this time-tested duo setting the scene. Slippery scat sensations control the classy sound of "Smith Street" (which features Groove Armada's Tim Hutton on trombone). The downtempo "Sunshine In Ipanema" (what can you say? These guys love them some Brazil) is still lively with addictive maracan hush-shuffles. And "Isn't This A Lovely Day" mixes Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and original instrumentation into something that is both amazing and virtually indescribable. If you can't dance to this song, you can definitely use it as the soundtrack to some mind-blowing sex.



This album doesn't sit still. There are times when the two DJs give us something close to an homage (think Nightmares on Wax divided by Lemon Jelly's Lost Horizons period), and then there are times when they seem to be testing their own limits ("Dr. Teeth" mixes urban graffiti with the brassy echoes of an orchestral hall; "Hang Tough" is a jungle of sound, a damp, ropy tangle of computer keyboards and canyon echoes).



This is hardly your typical house/mix album, so don't come here expecting the Asian Dub Foundation or Fatboy Slim. You won't be able to dance to everything here, but you'll definitely be able to listen to it all, over and over, and with relish."