Enjoyment of the Rapture's Tapes necessitates unfamiliarity with the majority of its contents, indifference to acute sequencing and, naturally, deep interest in what the band views as classic and fresh. The set, containing 22 tracks in 74 minutes, flits across several forms of dance music -- funk, disco, go-go, house, techno, hip-hop, disco revivalism -- often to a jarring extent, indeed sounding like it was selected by committee. The tougher transitions between ill-fitting tracks are masked with fade-outs and drastic bottom elimination through EQ'ing, and some tracks that do match up rhythmically -- Richie Havens' coarse cover of Lamont Dozier's "Going Back to My Roots" and Galaxy 2 Galaxy's gleaming "Afros, ARPs, and Minimoogs" being the prime pair -- sometimes present clashing moods and tones. Out of the newer tracks, the strongarming ardkore hip-house of Dances with White Girls' "Everybody's Got to Make a Living," released on the Rapture's own Throne of Blood label, wins out.
This is far more than a band earnestly attempting to show us the best bits of their record collection: the 22 tracks that comprise Tapes convey a concerted effort to bring a sense of history together under the banner of the groove .
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 "Tapes")
