- After releasing the first volume of "... Guide To Breaks" around 8 months ago and creating a high selling mix CD in the process, Kid Kenobi returns to deliver the second installment of his Clubbers Guide series again with comrade Shureshock on mic duties.
The Party Breaks disc on the first volume saw Kenobi take the recognisable anthems that were tried and tested throughout the previous year ie Superstylin', 138 Trek and of course the mighty Scram from the Plump DJ's. Volume 2 sees Kenobi taking a different path utilising the harder edged sounds of nu-skool breaks, 2-step and scrapping the funky/housey selections which started off the first disc.
To start things off, Kenobi mixes up a cut and paste introduction, similar to what the Stanton Warriors did on their CD, then takes it back to 1998 with Deejay Punk Roc's My Beatbox with the Bassbin Twins causing some block party madness on their new remix. Anything the Bassbin's seems to pull out either in remix form or their own work is some nasty ass work and the same goes for Shut Up And Dance who pull off a remix of Nova's One Note. To accompany this an acappella of Young MC's Bust A Move 2002 is layered on top with an MC who really doesn't sound anything like Young MC.
It really doesn't matter as MC Shureshock graces the mic with a ragga tipped rap on top of Hi-Grade's bassline workout, The Jug a personal favourite.
Soul Of Man's Dirty Waltzer has become a breaks anthem and is layered with GT's Kid Dynamite - the only track brought over from Vol. 1.
Kenobi and Poxy Music provides their remix of Green Velvet's La La Land just for the breaks heads in the place before Kicking A Hole in your speakers and bringing out some of the harder edged sounds from Raw As Fuck (AKA The Freestylers) - The Slammer being a tune to wreck any place - the awesome dub mix of Loko by Aquasky vs. Masterblaster and the rolling breaks of Layo & Bushwacka's Let The Good Times Roll.
Good to see that Kenobi supports his local breaks scene and Lo-Step feat Lior Attar's The Roots provides that bliss middle eastern feel before we get into the Chill Breaks side.
The Chill Breaks CD is exactly that, chilled out breaks for that morning after feel, but don't get any impression that these breaks are slowed down ie Kruder & Dorfmeister style, this is more of the Theivery Corporation/Jazzanova, nu-jazz style. With the exception of Groove Armada, Dzihan And Kamien, Jazzanova and Polar, most of these artists I personally have not heard, so it brings me to a conclusion that it takes a real breaks expert like Kenobi to mix something of that sort.
Setting the mood with Ian Simmonds' Swinging Millie, Kenobi select a bit of an acid jazz groove before moving onto the ragga styled Sunday Paper and Dread A The Roughest by Desmond Williams. Ragga is probably some of the best music to chill to especially if it has that real Carribean, smoky feel.
Onto some nu-jazz with the Guardner's Saphire which moves into some electro beats with Baptologic vs Rhoca's The Fridge, continuing onto the percussive Welcome To The Party by Jazzanova - a nasty slice of cabaret beats with percussion by the Har-U-Percussion Group.
Nu-jazz has incorporated some 2-step elements into it's sound recently and the 2 releases by Landslide are good examples of it - Golden Cavalier and Hear My People which uses some sexy female vocal snippets on top of a wicked bassline.
Kenobi rounds off the whole compilation with a crowd favourite - Groove Armada, with their track My Friend (Swag's Good Buddy Remix). A bit of sexy house to top things off.
Overall, I personally prefer this to Vol 1. especially with the Party Breaks mix as Kenobi offers listeners something new using the tracks that most clubbers would not be able to get on vinyl.