Sunday, September 21, 2008

Groove Armada "Late Night Tales" Review

Groove Armada, Late Night Tales

By Kim Gaspar

It's not uncommon for djs to structure their sets as a journey, starting in the here and now and taking you somewhere else. Groove Armada flip the convention on its head in Late Night Tales; it's a wandering behemoth of a journey, all right, but it's essentially the story of how they got here from there.
Ace's classic "How Long" reminds you that the 70's kind of had it going on, and that's a fact admirably echoed by the delicate synth line in Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve remix of "Midlake's Roscoe". Peter Bjorn & John's track "The Chills" flows into The Cure's "Close to Me", but the astringent tenor vocal and forthright bass are just as reminiscent of Roxy Music's "Love Is The Drug". Likewise, the shimmering lines of Electronic's "Get The Message" pivot effortlessly into Liquid People's "Son Of Dragon". Even Chris Rea's "Josephine" (French Edit) has a subtextual shoutout to the Motown classic "You're All I Need To Get By".
Music isn't created or listened to in a vacuum, and this is forty years of tunes and genres where all roads most excellently lead to Rome.

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