Average user rating    (0 vote)

Okay, so this isn’t psytrance, it isn’t psy-ambient, it's not shanti, and it’s not even got a single kick drum. And this might be the reason you need it.

Melbourne-based Extreme Records are one of the world’s most respected purveyors of experimental and generally odd electronica and this sublabel appears to have turfed out a gem. Mr Geoffrey & JD Franzke play a mishmash of charity shop records, and string them together in a dreamy, laconic way that, if you’ll pardon my French, is fucking fantastic.

There are smooth cover versions, laid-back folk music from at least a half dozen different countries, soul, samples taken from everyday urban life, a few songs to make you weep, all interweaved with spooky ambient drones and freakbeat.

I’m sure we’ve all heard the charity-shop-records thing done before; but I’ve never heard it done this well. Even the old psyreviews comedy mixes were a stab at this sort of thing, and Mr Geoffrey and JD have basically achieved what I’ve been trying to do with records since I was about 16.

It’s a journey. The way that familiar segues into unknown, or sparse suddenly becomes sexy, is nothing short of inspirational.

Get A Room raises some significant questions and ideas about what DJ’ing means; the chief one being to reposition the DJ’s role as something different to the bloke at the front of the room we all wave our glowsticks at. It’s not quite that this mix redefines every single parameter of the DJ phenomenon; and nor does it necessarily lead to the conclusion that the DJ’ing is all about some kind of esoteric magic.

Whatever might be going on here, I can confidently say that in six years of reviewing music and god knows how long listening to it, this is the only mixed album that can genuinely be considered a work of art on a basis that is of a higher level than the music it is comprised of. Something very, very special indeed.

10

Edit: If you’re having trouble picking this up, psyreviews’ chums over at Psy-Harmonics can ship it worldwide.