Ever since winning a Diesel: U-Music Award for Best Unsigned Producer in 2006, London-based Adam Dyment's DJ and production alias The Duke Dumont has been attached to remixes for acts like Lily Allen, Mystery Jets and Bat For Lashes, or glimpsed halfway down the bill at nights like Bugged Out! and Fabriclive. But if the impression is of an artist teetering on the edge of a breakthrough, then unfortunately this mix probably isn't enough to push him over.
FabricLive.51 occupies the same slightly strange place as his DJ sets, which are often sandwiched between the residents warming up and the headlining DJ. It's the oddly listless time that has neither the scope for experimentation of the earlier hours nor the energy of peaktime.
There's no build up before the stripped-down beats of Saturn V's "Come Into My Life" kick in. It's not a bad place to be at first, but the mix never really takes off like it needs to over the remaining 12 tunes. Featuring tracks like Federleicht's "On the Streets" and Gerd and The House Vectors' "We Bring U Muzik," Dyment's preferences lean towards the more minimal ends of house and techno with a dollop of deep male vocals. He's also one for letting the tunes stretch out a bit, normally keeping everything in the mix for five minutes or more, a subtle skill which works well enough in a club but which needs music with more variation in tone and tempo to keep you interested at home.
Indeed, the first real sense that a man who is apparently also a big fan of hip-hop, electro and dubstep actually listens to anything other than uber-trendy 4/4 beats comes with his own remix of Late Of The Pier's "Bathroom Gurgle" nine tracks in. He then follows it up with Scuba's "Hundreds and Thousands"—something of a bewildering choice considering its unique place in Scuba's otherwise excellent back catalogue as being as exciting as waiting for the kettle to boil. However, if you stick with him this far the eerie electronic muezzin wail of Iesayu Tokugamo's "Ryozen," Floating Points' rough-edged dubstep clank "K&G Beat" and the Enoesque ambience of Idioma's "Landscapes" provide both an intriguing conclusion and the crucial surprises the rest of the mix lacks. It's just a shame that—by this point—most people's attention will have drifted away elsewhere.
Buy Duke Dumont - FabricLive.51 at
Tracklist: Duke Dumont - FabricLive.51
 01. Saturn V - Come Into My Life
02. Audio Soul Project - Reality Check (Vincenzo Remix)
03. Bodycode - Imitation Dub
04. Argy & The Martinez Brothers - Debbie Downer
05. Federleicht - On the Streets (Kollektive Turmstrasse's Let Freedom Ring Remix)
06. Alessio Mereu & Matteo Spedicati - Attraction
07. Gerd & The House Vectors - We Bring U Muzik
08. Green Velvet - They Came from Outer Space
09. Late of the Pier - Bathroom Gurlge (The Duke Dumont Remix)
10. Scuba - Hundreds and Thousands
11. Ieyasu Tokugama - Ryozen
12. Floating Points - K&G Beat
13. Idioma - Landscapes
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