DJ Kicks

AMG Review of DJ Kicks

Jason Lymangrover
All Music Guide

Chromeo may be campy, but they have a completely sincere love for '80s synth funk, so it only seems natural that the duo would be invited to compile a mix for !K7's excellent DJ-Kicks mixtape series. The selections are a little smoother and spacier than typical club fare, but the music is the type that you would expect Dave One and Pee Thug to use to set the mood, piled with slick, twinkling arpeggios, slappy basslines, and bumping drum machine beats. It's an obscure batch of material pulled mostly from thrift store crates, as evident by a disclaimer in the liner notes that states, "Due to the rare nature of some of the repertoire featured on this release, we were unsuccessful in trying to locate the licensing source for some of the repertoire." Quite a repertoire it is. French-Canadian disco cuts (Pierre Perpall's "Virens Danser," France Joli's "Gonna Get Over You," Diane Tell's "Dans Tes Yeux," and the brilliantly robotic "Larmes de Metal" by Soupir) are wedged back to back with electronic R&B and adult contemporary artists who are more widely known, but still rarely found on dance mixes (such as Rick James protégé Donna Allen or the Alan Parsons Project). Like most entries in the DJ-Kicks run, the transitions are fluid and it's a steady, thoroughly enjoyable groove from start to finish. Of course, as entertaining as the experience of perusing Chromeo's crates can be, it's the moment when they take the mike and perform a talk box version of the Eagles' soft rock staple "I Can't Tell You Why" that really takes the cake.