Agatha - Rock & Roll mixed live by Lai & Petitti

  • Share
  • Agatha has become a popular Friday night event in Rome, Italy and has made itself the club to be in Europe to get a breakbeat fix. Breakbeat maestros such as Rennie Pilgrem, Meat Katie and Santos have graced Agatha's decks and to celebrate seven years of success, Mantra Breaks has teamed up with Agatha to release Rock'n'Roll. Agatha residents Lai & Petitti have mixed and compiled (by hand of course) 15 of the latest breaks tracks including one exclusive from Meat Katie. This Is The City by Break Legend gets things underway with it's old skool breakbeats opening things up before feet give in to the sexy shuffle created by the hi-hats and bassline. This Is The City owes a lot to Put The Needle On The Record as it borrows the bassline from it. Stir Fry's Lose Control moves the mix into a punk rock vibe with it's distorted CB Radio like vocals, rocky bassline and guitar riffs. Solaris by Extramode continues the punk vibe but on a housier/electro tip. Fingerlicker's Soul Of Man offer up a remix of Drive Red 5's This Is My Party giving it a nice old skool electro feel teamed up with the wicked percussive breaks that Soul Of Man are renowned for - syncopated and funky, yet not overbearing. Santos provides a remix for the Boogie Pimps club banger Somebody To Love - their tribute to the classic Mama's & Papa's tune. It sounds like a mix between the banging Santos breaks/house crossover sound like 70's Sensation and synthesiser laden electro. Only the vocal sample lends itself to the remix. In typical Meat Katie style comes the exclusive track, All I Need techy funk tribal house/breakbeat crossover done in the true Meat Katie style. Four to the floor house beats laced with lots of techy stabs and plenty of clever build ups while the female vocal samples tops it all off. For those who liked Meat Katie's reversion of Turn Me Out done with Christian J will drool over this track. The Plump DJ's tribute to old skool breakbeat Weighed Down makes an appearance - it features good use of the "Build It Up" sample and the Apache bongo breakdown in the middle. Unfortunately it's been mislabelled as Creepshow. In Lai & Petitti's defence however, Fingerlickin' have labelled the vinyl incorrectly in the first place. Ironically, Weighed Down sounds a lot creepier and darker than Creepshow in which the latter features some funky Kool & The Gang styled horns. More Fingerlickin' action follows on with Madox's remix of Soul Of Man's Dirty Waltzer. Staying true to the original tune with the acid house bassline and the jazz scat male vocal sample, Madox gives it a little Mantra feel by adding a little more acid 303 to the tune, and during the breakdown slows the tempo down to half tempo for a nice change of pace. JDS start the climax to the mix with their acid rave styled Blackout featuring vocal samples from an old skool hip hop track - Fresh Prince never sounded so good (particularly after the wack shit he got into 3 years ago). Anyone familiar with JDS' classic Nine Ways will associate with this tune, definitely a favourite with this reviewer as well. Personally, I'm getting tired of Benassi's Satisfaction however it's good to see an Aussie remix getting some respect and Poxymusic's version is one of the better remixes out there, that and Christian J's breaks remix are worth hearing. Same goes for Zer0's Emit/Collect - heaps of mix CD's have it in their tracklisting. In all due respect though, Rennie Pilgrem's Agatha Stomp remix is the track that got my attention about the club in the first place! Big ups to Zer0 too for making such an anthemic track that it probably gets as much airplay/clubplay as Scram! Finally Lai & Petitti close the mix off with an original Rennie Pilgrem track in the form of Gladiatore - rocky growling basslines and drums typical of a Rennie Pilgrem production. It's a nice way to end the mix - awesome bridge in the middle leaving only the drums and bassline to rock the beats, before it builds up to incorporate all elements back in the mix. Rock & Roll lives up to it's name - it's breakbeat with a discernable rock feel to it. It's easy to visualise a lot of dancers on the floor donning truckers hats, wrist bands and studded belts getting their groove on to this and it's also good to hear a mix truly done live - leaving the Protools and editing software at home. The punk chic trend has worn thin on me though, but with the exception of a few of tracks, this is a pretty fresh mix of the latest breakbeat tunes.
RA