CROSSTOWNREBELS VOL.01

If dance music has a dark demented prince, Damien Lazarus is definitely him. From flamboyant A&R guru for the once great City Rockers label, to compiler of the trend setting Rebel Futurism mixes, to ruling the cavern of DC10 with his twisted, driving blend of tech-electro, Lazarus has a Midas touch, albeit one laced with gleeful mayhem. His label Crosstown Rebels may have gone off the rails a little in the last 12 months, but it has a great back catalogue and has fostered some truly breath taking talent eg. Current Phar Lap house kings Matt Tolfrey and Craig Sylvester and the amazing Pier Bucci. This mix, yet another label compilation, displays both the highs and lows of the dark prince’s flagship label, thus it’s expectedly impressive in parts and predictably boring in others.
Thrills emerge early on with the Rob Mello’s liquid groove reworking of Presslaboy’s forgettable ‘Electric Generation’ into a tech house treasure. The gorgeous ‘Far Away’ has an undeniable Kompakt feel but represents a direction Lazarus could take the label in; blissful electro pop that Michael Mayer has been purveying for years. Dominik Eulberg beckons you into a k-hole with his skilful remix of Pier Bucci’s ‘L’Nuit’ and Matthew Jonson lets the analogue warmth loose on his 12 minute interpretation of Hiem’s ‘She’s The One’. Why Roman Flugel thought he could rework Jennifer Cardini’s already great ‘Stay’ into a schnaffel bore fest baffles the mind, and the much touted 3 Channels totally misfire with a washed out digital ditty totally devoid of funk, which is a Lazarus trade mark.
Nowhere near as enticing as the Rebel Futurism albums and, thankfully, not an accurate representation of this great label, Crosstown Rebels feels rushed. While it hits some of the dizzying highs one would expect from this dark prince, it mostly sounds flat and shrouded in the common complacency about music of this kind; crap if you are straight, awesome if you’ve just had a line of ketamine.