Our Music Our Culture Volume 1

The tracks sound familiar? That's right, as they've been available in different outfits from the Coopr8 MP3 store. First you could get them on the five Cooperation III Samplers, the first two were even out on vinyl. Later this compilation showed up on the same store, under a different name but with most of the tracks, though not all of them. Now Kay Suzuki‘s Bipolar releases it's first record, and it's this compilation again.

So much for the introduction, let's talk about music! The standout track for me turns out to be Simbad‘s Digital Revolution, the only track not featured on any of the previous releases - however, I'd love to hear an instrumental version. Next up are two tracks that were available on the first sampler, I C U from Karizma and Been Here Before from Lewis D. The first took a while to grow on me, but it's a deep, tension-building dancefloor killer built around a sample of Nina Simone's See Line Woman. Both tracks have a similiar feeling, broken beat on a house-tip - or vice-versa.

Unfortunately it goes straight downhill from there, though all the big names havn't been mentioned yet. Afronaut makes a return with Change featuring Blu of Basement Jaxx-fame on the vocals, Domu contributes Nu Vision, from Marc Mac comes Take Ova Me.

The compilations suffers the problem, that it sounds like collection of left-overs or unfinished tracks. A theory that gets support from the Bugz in the Attic's contribution called Reject. Especially the vocals on the majority of tracks are weak, the wish for instrumental tracks comes up more than just once. The list of artists featured sounds like an allstar roster, with many almost-forgotten names like Ayro or Colonel Red? For me this compilation is a big disappointment, most artists didn't meet my expectations, I hope this compilation does not replace a proper Cooperation III album. I'm missing tracks of the quality of Domu's Dangerous Times, Marc Mac's Throwdown or anything Izmabad (a collaboration of the featured Karizma and Simbad). If you still feel like listening to more snippets, let me recommend you the sampler from the Coopr8 player. Also, Juno Records has this item in stock.