Various Artists

Rinse:22 - Kode9

Genre: GRIME / FWD

Boomkat Product Review:

Visionary DJ/selector and sonic theorist Steve Goodman aka Kode 9 mans what is inarguably Rinse's most crucial mix CD to date. With mercurial sleight of hand he blends 37 tracks spanning the rhizome of techy, contemporary, bass-rooted funk and leaves most other selectors for dust. Bridging tempos, styles and patterns from myriad sub-strains of house, garage, hip hop, grime and footwork, he sums his intentions thusly; "This style has emerged out of me trying to fit all the stuff I want to play in a set… Generally these sets start relatively simple rhythmically and then get more f*cked-up as the mix goes on. So I suppose there's an element of ultimately just trying to seduce people into dancing to footwork by [gradually] taking them out of their comfort zone!". Breathlessly flowing from Burial's 'Truant' at one end to Rashad's footwork junglism 'Let It Go' at the other, he incisively encodes connections between the Northern Jackin' sound of Alex Parkinson and Chris Lorenzo with Joy O's big room hit and Funkystepz flip out 'Vice Versa', before finding the sympathetic geometries between Jam City's 'Her', his double-timing 'Uh' and Kuedo's gyroscopic 'Mirtazapine', or seguing grimy Afro-futurisms from Visionist, Dexplicit and The Bug with Flow Dan. But, like he said, it's all building to his footwork selection, a stunning run from his wryly dissonant slow/fast weapon, 'Xingfu Lu' thru the body-baffling torque of RP Boo's 'Steamidity' and 'Red Hot', to his own PE-snatching killer 'Kan' and the liquid funk flux of Bleep Bloop's remix for Uncon Sci's '8 Shots Up' and ramping up to the zero-gravity jungle/footwork and R&B fusions of DJs Rashad, Spinn and Manny. Ultimately it's an accelerationist's dream come tru, and one of the most impressive mix CDs we've heard in years. The bar has just been reset.

CD (3)