- Following on from Outpatients Vol.3 - showcasing the latest in 2-Step, Broken Beats, Break-step and Drum'n'bass, London Elektricity's Hospital Records imprint return to uncover their Weapons Of Mass Creation. For this CD, they've not only included tracks from established and rising UK drum'n'bass stars such as John B, Nu:Logic, Cyantific and Logistics, they've also branched out and included tunes from artists such as Hungary, Germany, Finland and Poland.
Laidback rhythms with percussive rolling breaks and jazzy horn stabs make up SKC & Bratwa's Heart Of Love with a sweet female vocal samples that could easily be confused for a real vocalist. SKC returns with Safair for Free My Soul on a harder, surging drum'n'bass tip utilising some crashing snares and hard dirty bass lines. Some great work by the Hungarian.
One of the highlight tunes from Nu:Tone's Hospital mix 3 is Danny Byrd, Adrock & MC Foxy's Planet Music - a combination of uplifting melodies, rolling beats, subtle basslines complimented by Foxy's vocals and female vocal samples.
Goldfinger by Laroque sounds like it has sampled the James Bond tune of the same name - big orchestral arrangements, powerful bass lines, charging beats and a vocalist who sounds like she's been slightly influenced by Shirley Bassey. John B's Without You provides a stark contrast to this with its loungey, laidback beats and vocal arrangements.
A collaboration project between the brothers Gresham, Nu:Logic AKA Nu:Tone and Logistics bring out the summery latin vibes on On And On featuring a latin influenced keyboard melody and plenty of latin percussion drumming throughout. Nu:Tone returns to remix London Elektricity's Fast Soul Music and no joke - it's fast 175 bpm piano laden drum'n'bass mixed in with a lot of soul music and soulful vocal stabs. Logistics also represents with his own Replay - a heavily percussive drum'n'bass piece using only minimal keyboard stabs amd vocal cuts.
Finland's Konsta represents with the jazzy piano laden Free Your Body and gives it a slight swing time feel both in drum beats and bouncy bass lines, and the compilation closes off with JFB's manic drum workout Ritz with a classic jazz melody that jazz enthusiats with be easily familiar with.
On CD2, label boss Tony Colman takes the 13 tunes and throws them into the blender to cook up a devastating mix. Being witness to seeing him play live in Sydney recently, I have no doubts to his skills both in production and on the decks.
For those who love uplifting jazzy drum'n'bass will drool over this, possibly one of the best drum'n'bass compilations of the year so far, and we're only halfway through it. Personally, I found Hospital Mix 3 to be slightly better tunes wise as it covered a broad range of styles and is a superb mix, but Weapons Of Mass Creation should sit very well in anyones CD collection, and unlike the WMD, this one is easy to find - just look for the army helmet with 3.5' jacks on the side.