Several layers deep in a YouTube music surf, I ended up at this video about the Mutek electronic music festival in Montreal, which I’d never heard of. I definitely have to get to that. In the video, Hans Thomann picks up this CD at a record store offering festival discounts and says it is “one of my personal trip-hop holy grails,” as a beautiful clip from “Vai Viver A Vida” plays in the background. I checked out the album on Spotify and got hit in the face with the opening track, “Blazing The Crop”.
Blazing The Crop was first the name of a 1999 DJ mix compilation (see Discogs for track list) that the duo assembled, with their killer track “Play On (Watch Out For This! Mix)” kicking it off. This isn’t what I was looking for, but what a find. It’s not on Spotify, but here’s the whole thing on YouTube.
That first track of that compilation shares some of the samples found in “Blazing The Crop”, which would be the first track on their second album, Sleepwalking, released in the same year. This track nails the 80s hip-hop vibe while benefiting from top-notch scratching and production quality that lives up to a 1999 release.
