(Bingo/Inertia)

I never heard Bingo Beat Volume 1, so I don’t know if two is taking it up a notch. But if you want to shift a few copies of a drum n bass mix CD, roping DJ Marky in is certainly not a bad idea. Not only is he quite obviously known for killer club sets, his mix albums in the past, such as Movement 2, were as dope as Schapelle Corby’s boogie board bag.

So what’s the deal here, huh? The average cover-art depicts the blazer-sporting Brazilian dnb don behind some text which claims the cd within contains ‘20 unreleased, upfront and exclusive tracks’. Maybe they’re unreleased and exclusive in Greenland, but I’ve heard a few before. Strange.

Either way, they’re well mixed, as you’d expect, such as when Chase and Status’s Love’s Theme morphs into Tactile’s The Mist, before German man of the moment Logistics takes centre stage with the uplifting bouncer Together, but on the whole the track selection lacks the usual magic touch we’re used to from Marky. Even his own tune with XRS, Misto Quente, sorta lacks the Latin spark.

Yet it picks up about a third of the way in, when Influx UK’s squeaky tech intro to 97 Moody gets played at length in all its rodentile space-invading fury. Marky gets a bit crazy on the scratching a la DJ Hype, before Calibre’s mellow It on U comes along, only for Twisted Individual’s moody Bollock Yoghurt  to up the ante once more. It’s a little more casual than the usual Twisted Individual fury, but it fits fairly well.

Anyway, the best part of the mix follows, with a typical Tru Playaz number from Zinc, before it’s straight into X-Ray from Sub Focus. This one’s been doing the rounds in Sydney clubs over the last few months, what with its Bad Company style roller-ness and very dope quadruple kick drum… why producers don’t explore this a little more I’ll never know.

Craggz and Parallel Forces Flatfoot possesses an interesting drum pattern as well, despite its awkwardness, and there’s a few more good track thrown in. Spirit’s Siren takes it back a few years with it’s quasi-jungle vibe and old school synth sounds reminiscent of Goldie’s Timeless, while another Zinc tune, Drive by Car VIP, shows the Tru Playaz man could well be running out of ideas; it sounds like his decade old Super Sharp Shooter and that was ages ago.

And it all goes out on a bit of an average note; both Jenna G’s Don’t Bury Me and veteran Shy FX’s Brown Paper Bag-esque Plastic Soul are ok, but I do like to go out on monster tunes. It’s alright, but it won’t get more than a few plays.

There have been a few decent mix albums over the last coupla months, and for the ‘consumer’ that just wants a mix cd to wack on and get the party started, one of these could prove a little more exciting…