Matthew Dear's addition to the !K7 label's
DJ-Kicks series follows
Fabric 27 (2006) and
Body Language, Vol. 7 (2008) as the artist's third commercially available mix album. Like the preceding two, the selections are up to date, with only an
Alex & Digby edit of
Gary Sloan and Clone's "Harmonitalk" (1980) potentially making the listener feel transported to another era (à la
Mixed Up in the Hague). After a gentle instrumental from
Nils Frahm,
Dear leads into the mix with a turbulent dancefloor ballad, one of his hypnotic, slightly unsettling best. It plays out for its duration, after which
Dear sequences finely detailed and near-brutal selections that blur into one another. After the mix seems to peak with a section of battering
Simian Mobile Disco,
Pearson Sound, and
Soulphiction tracks,
Dear ratchets up the intensity with a clutch of his
Audion productions. Punctuated by
DJ Khalab (and
Baba Sissoko)'s rolling and disorienting "Kumu," this is
Dear's funnest and oddest mix yet.