★★★★☆
If you think the club music of today has absolutely zip to say, Fabric 70 is compounding matters by barely offering you as much as a jack to obey. Mazi’s “Scene Shifter” musters a ‘just feel it’ for those feeling lost. That’s because the vibe circling is screaming volumes; gritty, hard shuffling grooves riding the Chicago expressway to Detroit and the new wave of techno, fresh out the box from the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Actually it’s not quite as old as that, despite French threesome Apollonia commendably reaching out to the back of their record bags. As they champion the upfront, the mood is of when the music had little ID —certainly without any offshoots or splinter factions — and was just recognized as what was coming out of the darkest of anti-discotheque areas.
Witihin these rules, Apollonia’s “Trinidad” bears the unmistakable bassline dive of Doug Lazy’s hip-house superpower “Let It Roll,” while the pendulously po-faced bass to Dyed’s sternly sexy remix of Daze Maxim is the essence of looking backwards to speed forwards. Little breakups of security, through glider synths on Nail’s “I’ve Been There” and the unusual occurrence of lavish strings from Funk E, are equivalent to a hit of house inhaler, with Mood II Swing’s jazzy street sway continuing concentration on core values. A mix that paints a thousand words in blue, white and red that need shouting from the rooftops.
File under: Louie Vega, Chris Carrier & Hector Moralez, Todd Terry