- Back once again with the ill behaviour, Artists Known As has come out with their second instalment of If It Ain’t Broken, Don’t Fix It … appropriately titled “If It Ain’t Broken, Don’t Fix It Too”. After the first highly successful volume, “… Too” delves deeper into the crates labelled “locals” and extracts a nice variety of tunes spreading across all subgenres of the breakbeat spectrum.
On the funkier side of breaks, Musiq For Pleasure’s Intergalactic Mystery is a sampladelic number sitting on top of a phat breakbeat. It’s like a meeting between The Drumattic Twins and The Avalanches – the latter being attributed to the freaky old skool funk samples layered on top and the former responsible for the kickin bass drums and fuzz bass. Ransom’s remix of Brewster B’s Hanky Panky The Soul Shaker shows that the Tummy Touch influence is coming out thanks to a wicked double bass line accompanied by an organic breakbeat .
If you slept on these guys on the last Freaky Loops CD then wake up as Ubin take a trip back to the 80’s with the electro styled Peep - look out for the funkin’ bass line coupled with the old skool synthesiser melody, reminiscent of Arthur Baker’s work with Planet Patrol.
Scrambler represent a more nu-skool approach to the compilation with the techy 813 similar to the styles of NuBreed – a wicked tune and Scrambler lives up to their name by scrambling and splicing up the beats during the breakdown. Speaking of NuBreed, the lads themselves have cooked up a fine remix of Summer Breezefor Phil K’s Free Radicals project
The lads from Infusion make a double feature on the compilation with their latest Marine Parade release, Dead Souls. A proggy four to the floor house/breaks affair with a distinct rock flavour to the beats, Dead Souls pays it’s tribute to classic electro while keeping itself firmly planted in the styles of today. On a solo mission is Fex jumps aboard the Last Train to show off this Chicken Lips inspired electro breaks tune.
Keltec & Mangan are proving to be quite a team as they make another appearance for volume 2 with another female vocalist on Itsachickthing - dark and moody on a tribal tip.
CD 2 is a mix CD done by competition winner, Cairns’ DJ Jeremy Judd. You can read the individual track profiles here from a previous review. Being a compilation which is only 10 tunes strong, having to make a mix CD from it is pretty hard work and Jeremy’s only done it with 8 with Puretone’s Addicted To Bass and Lo-Step’s tune both excluded from the final selection. Big ups and here’s hoping that more budding DJ’s are willing to showcase their skills at the same time, offer their support for our burgeoning breaks scene.
A series designed to showcase Australian breakbeat talent in all respects; “If It Ain’t…” neatly highlights and arranges all forms of breakbeat mayhem into one volume and Aussies are getting better at it - this volume is better than the previous one!