Electro blues? As in ‘like electro swing’? As in take old blues music and sample it or remix it with some form of electronic dance music beat which – on the evidence of Electro Blues Vol. 1 – is statistically likely to be a breakbeat? Er – yeah pretty much. Hmm – blues and breaks. Blues-breaks. John Mayall’s blues breakers. Funnily enough – he’s on here – courtesy of The Empire Fantastic which finds the sixties legend singing away atop a breakbeat remix of The Laws Must Change. It’s one of the best cuts on a twenty four track compilation from the Freshly Squeezed label which label boss Nick Hollywood reckons will be a “massive global sound within a few years.” Well, he would say that wouldn’t he. Then again – he does know a thing or two about electro swing what with that White Mink: Black Cotton release and all…
If you want a shorthand audio easy reference point for ‘electro blues’ then anything by Moby off ‘that’ album (Play) from 1999 is it. But don’t let that put you off. Even if Moby’s Honey makes an appearance here. Well it might as well – its been whored everywhere else. Instead let breaks merchants Skeewiff get you jumping with his blues-breakin bounce Brother Noah and permit latin breaks (electro latin?) bad-boy Monetrik to serve up some Blues Soup. Then, when all that modernising gets a bit much – there’s the ‘vintage’ second half of the collection. Or – as I like to think of it – stuff you can probably expect to find sampled on Volume 2…
(Out now on Freshly Squeezed)