(Compost Records / Creative Vibes)

This compilation bills itself as a collection of ‘highly influential’ tunes in the history of dance music, compiled by rare groove DJ Florian Keller. Though there are some pretty good tracks on this compilation and ones that will be enjoyed by fans of hip hop and funk, this diversity becomes the album’s major weakness. It is, in my opinion, a really significant weakness too.

It kicks off with Althea and Donna’s ‘Uptown Ranking’, a worldwide reggae hit and a brilliant tune in its own right which many listeners will recognise. The tune that follows ‘Rappin & Rhymin’ by Paulett and Tanya Winley is uptempo and has a funk backing and great rap, being supposedly the first female rap recording. It flows on well from Althea and Donna despite the change of pace, since both are roughly contemporary and representative of two reasonably underground musical scenes. By track three, the wheels seem to be shaking loose from their axles as we are presented with some unreconstructed disco from 1979. Chanson’s ‘Don’t hold back’ sounds perilously similar to something Kool and the Gang could have released- possibly to the taste of some, but songs exhorting the ‘boogie’ out of me tend not to get too far.

Following up and we’re back on solid ground (but quite different style) with a really great piece of hip hop from Bronx duo Black Sheep (the homogenised mix of Simalak Child sounding like an understated Cypress Hill) but the problem for me is jumping from tinny disco to new school hip hop is that it ruins both in the jarring contrast. Michel Legrand’s funk offering, track 5 on the compilation, introduces a bit of a rock vibe with some psychedelic organ funk sounding very 60s indeed. It’s followed by the track sampled by DJ Shadow’s ‘Organ Donor’, which it turns out was originally produced by Georgeo Moroder as ‘Tears’. It’s a tune that deepens the psychedelic tip that Legrand’s track started, so it’s annoying to be confronted with a cover of Chic’s ‘Le Freak’ immediately following, only marginally better than the deeply irritating original. And as if the transition from psychedelic rock to disco wasn’t a bit much, track 8 that follows (Tyrants in Therapy with ‘Three People’) sits loudly and proudly in the 80s electro school.

At this point I couldn’t help wondering whether there was some lucrative scene for completely dissonant dj sets that I knew nothing about. It made me wonder if there are clubs where I could play Hank Williams followed by Suicidal Tendencies and garner a following. It’s not like the tracks on this album are bad on their own, they’re just a bit stomach-churning all together and I couldn’t enjoy them as they were for the contrast. There will be lots of people who want to own these tracks individually, ‘Tyrants in Therapy’ in particular will be a real find for fans of electroclash and breakdancing, but all I can think of at this point is to provide some kind of warning not to listen to this album sequentially. Fans of hip hop and breakdancing will also probably know and definitely love the tune that follows Tyrants: Daniel Softer with ‘Scratching 100 Speakers, featuring a young Dr Dre doing a scratch remix. It’s outstanding. However, a headache sets in once again, like chocolate right after oysters comes Ellen McElwayne with ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’- a tune in the singer songwriter type tradition of scatty singing and an acoustic guitar backing. The kind of folky thing you’d hear at a demo. After Dr Dre. Hmm. Then back we go to the disco: Hypnotics with ‘Beware Of The Stranger’ and Darondo with 1974’s ‘Legs Pt. 1’, sounding like they would belong on a Shaft movie soundtrack. The funk tune ‘Crazy Girl Part 2’ by Freddie Love is rightly described as a funk great, and the compilation is rounded off with a really fun ska influenced reggae cover of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move On Up’ by Greyhound.

I have been pretty tough on this compilation, and I don’t intend to suggest that eclectic styles can’t make for a good listening experience. But many of Sydney’s rare groove djs, on radio and in clubs, manage to achieve a variety without jarring the listener and undermining the usefulness of the compilation. It’s just that the wildly varying selection spoils the individually good tunes. I can’t really figure out how hip hop fans will deal with the folk music, or how the funk fans are going to enjoy the 1960s influenced psychedelica. It sounds mean, I know, but I don’t really know where, or for whom, this compilation is going to work. Check out: www.intosomethin.com, www.party-keller.com and www.compost-records.com