Pete Tong
Essential Mix
Album Review
Released: 2001
Album Review
Pete Tong is a british radio DJ, record-label impresario and free-floating muckety-muck of the U.K. music business. He has helped make the careers of drum-and-bass blowhard Goldie and All Saints, the ultimate Spice Girls tribute band, but we shouldn't hold these things against him. This thumping, visceral set of house and techno begins and ends with uplifting ethno-schmaltz tracks that blend house beats and wailing faux-Gaelic gal vocals - like Enya for clubbers. But in between, Tong spins dreamy tunes that skirt the edge of trance yet never get quite that drippy: Essential Mix really lifts off with the subtle, soulful David Morales remix of Photek's "Mine to Give," then segues into the rainbow-colored synthesizer oscillations of Stylus Trouble's "Sputnik." At his best, Tong stitches together house music into a soundscape of the fantastic - dance music for your mind and your feet - meant to conjure an internal science fiction of emotion and reverie that's as exotic as anything written by Isaac Asimov. At his silliest, the DJ crowns his set with Planet Funk's chirpy "Chase the Sun," which is as syrupy as anything written by the Archies. That's when Essential Mix just becomes bubblegum for adults. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. (RS 867 - April 26, 2001)
PAT BLASHILL
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