Armand Van Helden - New York: A Mix Odyssey Two

Another fine mix you’ve got me into, Mr Van Helden

The mid-to-late 80s was an exciting time for New York’s club scene as, apart from the tremors caused by acid house, the sampler became a prime studio tool resulting in audacious Frankenstein groove monsters before the legal departments got busy. The second volume of Armand Van Helden’s musical homage to his city and the sounds that rocked it is a fearsome rollercoaster which tears through a raft of Funky Drummer-driven hip-hop classics, before acid house enters the fray from Chicago to spawn hip-house.

After igniting with Chill Rob G’s The Power flowing into Strafe’s seminal electro-house anthem Set It Off, the eightarmed DJ unleashes overlooked nuggets by Kwame, King Bee, Sugar Bear, Doug Lazy, Eric B & Rakim and Roxanne Shante, before Nitro Deluxe’s This Brutal House brings in dance music’s future with seminal Windy City acid anthems by Tyree, Fast Eddie and Maurice. Both strains collide in a hip-house rush from Queen Latifah, her British protégé Monie Love, Kool Rock Steady and the Jungle Brothers, while Van Helden stamps his formidable talent on the set with his own tracks like Shake That Ass and Nicolette-sampling Ski Hard, effortlessly gate crashing to boost the incendiary party vibe and maintain the lineage of eternal freshness.

Southern Fried | ECB 144 CD

Reviewed by Kris Needs
<< Back to Issue 356