- What do you get when you stir up old-school house, nu-skool breaks, squeaks, bleeps, and lots o’ sirens? Trouble Soup, that’s what. TS is Italian stallions Santos and Madox and it’s a match so sweet they deserve their own Gustavo Santoalalla theme. These guys have been major players in the breaks scene for some time now: Santos’ ‘Sabot’ and its Evil Nine remix featured on comps by Hyper and James Lavelle while Madox is best known for ‘Smells Like Naples’ off the Plumps’ 'Saturday Night Lotion' comp from last year. As Trouble Soup they housed up Slyde’s ‘Vibrate To This’ last year and 'Y4K' marks their first compilation as a DJ duo.
'Y4K' fans – treated to a broad swath of compilations last year by DJs such as Ali B, Evil Nine, Nubreed, and DJ Icey – will be surprised to hear what is easily the housiest installment in the series yet. But you shouldn’t be disappointed, as this disc ratchets up the energy level to 11 right off the bat and doesn’t loosen its chokehold for a full 78 minutes.
Trouble Soup kick-start their 'Y4K' into motion with the Mike Monday remix of Ourhouse’s ‘Dropout’. It’s a breaksy-housey combo that trumps the original and serves as a solid warm-up. The pair whip out the big guns at track three with their acid house touch-up of Tayo & Acid Rockers’ ‘Shorty The Pimp’. They then turn their scalpels to Todd Terry’s 1988 barn-burner ‘Can You Party?’, trimming most of its dated elements but leaving in the diva samples, drum machine and sirens - the first but certainly not last to appear in the mix. I can think of about a hundred DJs who would’ve mucked up this remix but Santos and Madox don’t take themselves too seriously and have tweaked ‘Can You Party?’ into a goofier good time even twenty years later. And what better way for Trouble Soup!! to follow up Todd Terry, one of the godfathers of house, than with their own filthy tribute to the genre’s epicenter ‘Via Chicago’?
The second half of the album is ushered in with the twisted electrofunk of Madox’s ‘Le Plaisir Analogique’ which sounds like 100 Atari arcade systems going to war. Dave Clarke’s ‘The Wiggle (Madox Re-Rub)’ is a welcome subwoofer stomper, and while I prefer the more wicked original, Trouble Soup do a fine job of housifying Slyde’s ‘Vibrate To This’. The sirens then return with a vengeance in Trouble Soup's appropriately titled ‘Enjoy The Sirens’, which after seven-plus minutes had me wondering if these guys got together based on a mutual love for ambulances. The Poonisher – not a porn video but a breaks producer – closes it all out with ‘The Stunt’, a breaks stormer that could only be improved by hearing it on a massive club sound system, instead of my puny iPod headphones.
Trouble Soup were a surprise pick compared to the recent slate of breaks mainstays that Distinct'ive have called on for its venerable 'Y4K' series but their mix proves it was an inspired choice. House is the main course with only four straight-up breaks tracks in all, but this shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who’ve followed 'Y4K', now into its sixteenth installment. Evil Nine’s volume 13 had almost as much house while DJ Icey’s volume15 featured primarily house melodies but with a breaks foundation. Breaks purists might disagree with the increased shift to 4/4 but the Trouble Soup brand of house is real tasty – this coming from someone who normally can’t stand the stuff. Santos and Madox have served up the most exciting 'Y4K' since Phil K. Souper from start to finish.