Coldcut 70 Minutes Of Madness - Journeys By DJ

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  • Originally released in 1995 on the Journeys By DJ imprint, Coldcut's 70 Minutes Of Madness redefined the DJ mixed CD with it's unique blend of hip hop, drum'n'bass, techno and whatever else you can think of thrown into a tight coherent mix - 70 minutes of madness indeed! The mix kicks off with Bola by Philorene and is mixed in with an uncredited Depth Charge by Depth Charge - a nasty piece of dub hip hop with the kung foolery on top. Depth Charge captures the full essence of 70 Minutes... as beats, samples and genres are chopped, cut, scratched, punched and kicked (OK, maybe not the last two) into a block party jam of epic proportions. The Truper gets things going at double speed for the drum'n'bass section with Street Beats Vol. 2, with Coldcut turning it into a ragga affair with Junior Reid's One Blood and Newcleus' Jam On Revenge. Dillinja's remix of Funki Porcini's King Ashabanapal rounds off the drum'n'bass section with the 33 rpm switch hit to slow things down to breaks/house speed. Crazy beats to follow with the Jedi Knights, Plastic Man and a sermon by Bob Holroyd before Coldcut bring out the cut'n'paste hip hop section starting off with their 1987 classic Beats And Pieces which obviously went to inspire their 1997 hit More Beats And Pieces. The queen of hip hop, Queen Latifah, makes an appearance with her 1989 collaborative effort with Coldcut on Find A Way making way for Mantonix's King Of The Beats - a breakbeat/hip hop classic from around the same era. It's then time to cut out the beats with Grace by Luke Slater and Joanna Law provides her rendition of the Roberta Flack classic, First Time Ever I Saw Your Face before KRS-One and BDP bring out the ultimate hip hop diss track, The Bridge Is Over, targeting his rivals MC Shan and Marley Marl. Jhelisa's Friendly Pressure in accapella form is layered on top of DJ Food's Nu Blud - the songstress' vocal effort being rated on the Coldcut website as an essential tune that goes with anything - before Jello Biafra pulls out his politically charged diatribe Message From Our Sponsor. Tim 'Love' Lee gets all masochistic with the conga charged Again Son, before Red Snapper pull out the double bass on Hot Flush, only to line up the Theme From Doctor Who. Those out there who are familiar with the tune will be whistling along to it To finish it all off, DJ Food get all soundtracky with The Dusk, but Coldcut and Ninjatune releases are usually accompanied by a secret track at the end and one is no different. Their remix of Eric B & Rakim's Paid In Full was named Coldcut's 7 Minutes Of Madness remix and became a massive club classic, reinventing the remix and earning Coldcut a DMC award in 1987 for the best remix. Come 1995 and they release their Journeys By DJ mix and named it their 70 Minutes Of Madness, which became a much sought after classic, reinvented the DJ mix CD category and earnt Coldcut full scores from leading dance music magazine's all round, some even crediting it as "the best DJ mix album of all time". This CD has inspired Coldcut to create their ColdKrushCuts mix and is definitely DJ Ransom's inspiration for his Physics Of Freestyle CD's. Now that it has been re-released, do yourself a favour and grab one before they become deleted again.
RA