According to the nicely designed cover that this compilation arrived in, the word “addicted” has two meanings:

1. To cause to become physiologically or psycho-logically dependant on a habit forming substance, or;
2. To occupy or involve oneself in something habitually or compulsively.

Based on these definitions, I think it’s fair to say that I am hopelessly addicted to both progressive music and football. And listening to these compilations it dawned on me that there are many parallels that can be drawn between my two addictions.

Luke Chable is a DJ I have heard much about. He is highly regarded by people who love progressive house music and has released a number of compilations. But the work of his that I have heard didn’t live up to the expectations placed upon him. For me Luke would represent the football team filled with representative players that has been involved in the business end of the season on previous occasions, but which has yet to actually win a premiership flag.

As for Kosmas Epsilon, I had never even heard of this DJ before I received this compilation, so he is very much the new kid on the block in terms of worldwide CD releases. However, on researching his background, I realised that he has the potential to make a success of things. Kosmas is much like a new football franchise with a good recruitment policy: the DJ equivalent of the Gold Coast Titans, or possibly the Melbourne Storm in the late nineties.

Luke’s season (or mix) kicks off with a solid home victory courtesy of Gus Gus’s “Need In Me”. It’s a messy track which is redeemed by a great vocal that’s very reminiscent of mid-nineties house tunes. The music itself has a broken stop/start feel to it yet the beat is definitely four to the floor. If progressive breaks is a sound where the music sounds like house, but the beat is broken, then this surely represents the other side of the ledger.

If the opening game of the season is a solid yet unspectacular win then “I Don’t Care” by Man in the Cupboard is one of those games where the team screams out to an early lead and then cruises through the rest of the game, finding the skills to turn it up a notch when necessary. Very nice.

Luke’s great early season form continues with Body and Soul’s “Girls and Boys”, a storming tech number that winds itself round the “oohhh yeah baby” gene in your brain and hits it repeatedly with a lump of four by four. This early brilliance takes a bit of a hammering with the more than annoying “Freakin Me” and a new re-mix of “Piano Track” which isn’t a patch on the original. It has its moments of brilliance, but overall it’s a sound which I find discomforting to listen to.

Just when you think that the season is heading in the wrong direction, “team Chable” suddenly puts in a killer performance with Thomas Schumacher’s “Inside”. It’s a far more flowing sound than some of the previous tracks, albeit still more on the electro tech side of progressive, but the bass line has a dark, filthy nastiness to it that I find endearing. Then, just when you are losing yourself in the bass, a synth kicks in to the same rhythm of the bass and gives it a whole new dimension. This track gets under my skin in the best possible way and makes me crank up the volume a few notches every single time!

It is often said, in many walks of life, that it is hard to follow brilliance and Dan Mangan’s “Resourcer” certainly starts as if it wants to fail. But at the end of the first quarter it finds its rhythm, then loses it again and then regains it. It’s a track that is growing on me, but there’s as much to dislike about the track as there is to like. Its stop/start and stuttering nature jars me, but its rasping nastiness evens things out to some degree – I’d call it a draw.

It’s a sign of a good team if they can follow a poor performance with a strong one and there is probably none stronger than Luetzenkirchen’s “Daily Disco”. This is a tune that I will never tire of hearing. The “Boyz Noise” mix of the same song however, makes a complete dogs breakfast of a brilliant tune and I can’t even begin to describe how it’s screaming, patchy noises irritate me beyond measure. It’s such a shocking defeat that this team just might be falling apart at the seams.

Up to this point in the mix, team Chable has scored more wins than losses, but overall I’d describe the mix as solid rather than spectacular. A series of screaming victories are required to round things out and save the season. However, things don’t start too well as Luke brings us another stop/start bleepathon in the form of the Sons of Slough’s “Real People”. The town of Slough is in my home county of Buckinghamshire in England and it is widely regarded as an utter dump. Maybe Luke just has a really twisted sense of humour. Whatever the explanation it’s a joke that’s utterly lost on me.

My CD player advises me around now that the track has changed, and that I am now listening to Lostep’s “We Can”. I will have to take the player’s word for it, because this track starts off sounding just as bad as the last one. But wait! There’s a change in the air. Yes, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse – they do. This is truly painful. It’s worse than watching overpaid meat- head poseurs scratch their heads as they wonder why the ball that was previously in their hands is now sitting on the ground and the crowd is screaming obscenities at them. For me, the season is over and all dreams of a championship have faded.

It’s a shame, as Luke rounds out the season with three storming victories. Royksopp’s “What Else is There”, Thomas Schumacher’s “Brut Royal” and Shiloh’s “Vice” are all quality numbers and had they arrived a couple of tracks earlier I get the feeling they really could have turned things around for this mix. This mix isn’t a “wooden spooner” by any means, but it’s not a championship contender either. It sits firmly in the middle of the pack – having sqaundered a strong start by losing form half way through and only presenting their best efforts once everyone’s given up and lost interest.

Kosmas Epsilon kicks off his season with Sergei’s “Main Road”, again a solid if unspectacular opener. If Chable’s mix is all about disorganised messiness with moments of brilliance then Kosmas is his perfect foil with a far more rounded and rolling sound that is immediately more welcoming. Kosmas follows up on his understated opener with much of the same as he eases himself into things with a very cautious approach.

Caution is thrown to the wind somewhat for the duration of the next two tracks Kosmas changes direction. He starts with a Yannis PK tune “Playing with Marilyn” which uses a voice sample from the 1960’s in which Marilyn Munroe is introduced to an audience which includes President Kennedy. There is much to admire about this track but it does grate somewhat in parts and I’m really not sure if I like it. It seems to very much depend on my mood at the time. The track it mixes into is an improvement musically, but it contains an annoyingly puerile lyric which spoils things – basically, someone is claiming that people who “mess with him” are welcome to perform various sexual acts on him in the hope that they demean themselves. To sum up the track, I’d draw a parallel to a game where your team played well enough to win, but unfortunately your two star players call the ref every name under the sun, get sent off and you end up losing.

At this point in the season, team Kosmas has had two narrow victories and two narrow defeats and you get the feeling that if things don’t start to work soon they’re just not going to. Yet suddenly things start to click, moves start to come off and the plays start to work. Nutrunners “Open Spaces” commences in a relaxed manner, but by the half way point it clicks into gear and another narrow victory is notched up. FC Kahuna, a football reference if ever I heard one, brings us “Hayling”. I’m not sure if the name Hayling brings back fond childhood memories of holidays on Hayling Island on England’s South Coast or if I just like it for its wonderful understated energy, but its positive nature is infectious.

The next sequence of four games, or tunes, is the best on the whole compilation. The build-up is continual with things improving with each and every tune as all opposition is blown away. This championship run includes one of Kosmas’s own productions called “Paranoid” and culminates in a wonderful Kosmas remix of VSag & Andrew K’s “Fossil”, a tune of which I was already extremely fond. I am so enamoured with this sequence that I keep trying to find new excuses to get in my car, just so I can put on the CD and listen to it repeatedly.

The final four games of the season lack the intensity of the previous four, but by this stage things are very much in cruise control and what they lack in power they more than make up for with flowing movement and sheer beauty. Maybe another performance at the level of “Fossil” would have improved things slightly but I’m really nit picking here. Whilst Kosmas’s mix is not utterly perfect, it is very much a finals contender for mix of the year. The quality of releases that it is up against for such exalted status is fierce and it’s very much the outsider in a high quality field, but it’s a testament to the lad’s skills that he has made it this far, especially when more experienced players have missed out.

Would I recommend that you purchase this compilation? Yes, I think I would. If you are a fan of Luke Chable then you may well get more enjoyment from his mix than I did, but the jewel in the crown is Kosmas and he really deserves the accolades for a skillful performance.