- DJ-du-jour and producer extraordinaire Matt Edwards (a.k.a. Rekid, a.k.a. Quiet Village) is about to unleash this, a mixed CD for the Belgian imprint Eskimo under his Radio Slave guise. Following recent Eskimo releases such as DJ Naughty’s ‘One Naughty Night in Berlin’, Chromeo’s ‘Un Joli Mix Pour Toi’ or Rub N Tug’s (frankly odd) ‘Campfire’, this ‘Creature of the Night’ is an utter stylistic mess. And what a one-size-fits-all, let’s-party-and-love-one-another arresting mess that is.
Want Border Community-style neo-trance à la Lazy Fat People? Checked. Need NYC disco-funk à la Shit Robot? Checked. Feel like vintage 80’s pop à la Corey Hart? Checked. Looking for a Senor Coconut minimal remix by Villalobos? Checked. An obscure The Osmonds disco re-edit? Checked. Old-school garage house from Joe Smooth? Checked. Green Velvet shaking and popping? Checked. Exclusive Radio Slave remixes (such as The Kills’ ‘No Wow’ and X-Press2’s ‘Kill 100’)? Checked. Edward’s own stellar ‘My Bleep’? Checked. Eskimo are the specialists of such diversified mixed CD, and if your idea of hell is a seven-hour set of Wighnomy Bros abstract clicks and repetitive cuts (I know it is mine), then ‘Creature of the Night’ is for you.
With such diversity, though, it is hard to keep the whole thing in synch, technically speaking, and unfortunately, Edwards is no 2 Many DJs: some of the transitions are loose, and tracks are often played in their eight-minute-long entirety, which I guess is perfect for tired creatures at the end of their dancing night, but can get a bit tedious for the fast-paced, don’t-you-like-to-drive-across-Canada-while-banging-übercool-European-DJ-mixes listener that we sometimes all are. But when Senor Coconut’s exotic percussions start blending into the notorious synth line from ‘Sunglasses at Night’, it all of a sudden makes perfect sense. Furthermore, hats off to Edwards for actually bringing back to the forefront that over-played yet still marvelous Canadian power-pop track even Tiga himself refuses to put in his sets anymore. Sometimes, it is cooler not to be cool.
Which is just to prove that Radio Slave operates from a zone of his own. Alongside ex-partner Serge Santiago and Ewan Pearson, Edwards is part of the UK dance scene Renaissance, and ‘Creature of the Night’ definitely proves he is marching to the beautiful bleeps of a different drum.
Tracklist1 Hell - Let No Man Jack (Radio Slave Acapella & FX)
2 Sly Mongoose - Snakes and Ladder (Rub n Tug Remix)
3 Shit Robot - Wrong Galaxy
4 Lazy Fat People - Dark Water
5 The Kills - No Wow (Radio Slave Remix)
6 X-Press 2 - Kill 100 (Radio Slave Remix)
7 Radio Slave - My Bleep (Roman Flugel Remix)
8 Green Velvet featuring Walter Phillips - Shake and Pop
9 Senor Coconut - Behind the Mask (Ricardo Villalobos Remix)
10 Corey Hart - Sunglasses at Night
11 Joe Smooth - Perfect World
12 The Osmonds - iii (Quiet Village No-edit)
13 Dennis Parker - Like an Eagle