This being my first review for RAN, I've decided to review one of my favourite "releases" of this year, something way out-there, and what's more something you can all go and listen to!

I say "releases" because it was released only as a promo CDR, by Soot Records. But follow that link and click on sonidos, then GOLD TEETH THIEF, and you'll get to this page, where you can peruse the tracklisting and then download the two 30-something minute mp3s!
I did it, and I'm only on a 56k modem, not cable - so you can do it too!

This is without a doubt the most on-the-button (or maybe the trigger), totally first-class mixtape since Coldcut's Journeys By DJ. Sadly that CD is now out of print, but it deserves a nostalgia-entry some time soon (remind me!)

We start with Missy Elliot's Timbaland-produced masterpiece "Get Ur Freak On", and its pinched-tight ragga beat sets the tone... Mixed in shortly is some bizarre North African flute loop, and after most of the song has played, Ricky Dog (aka Bling Dog)'s "Risen to the Top" is the first of the real dancehall tunes to turn up... and shortly after this, the first glorious hints of jungle beats enter - DJ Scud's massively distorted old-school jungle meets hardcore, much more of which we hear later in the comp.
And following Scud, we get one of various fabulous classic Ragga Jungle tunes, from back around '94. The first is Barrington Levy's "Here I Come jungle"...

The range is pretty amazing. We've got heaps of ragga and ragga jungle for sure, and hardcore noise stuff (but it's surprisingly not that noisy!) Lots is quite abrasive - the dancehall ragga stuff is as hard-hittingly political as old Public Enemy, with songs like "Cop Shot" and "Corrupt System". The mixing is fantastic. Records get stopped just as the next track mixes in, beats matching perfectly, dancehall goes into ragga jungle and hardcore perfectly (my fave bpms really!) - after all jungle is really double-speed dancehall/dub/hip-hop.

You've got Kid 606 going into (20th century composer) Luciano Berio, and at the end Oval mixed into Muzlimgauze's drones, followed by Ladysmith Black Mambazo's breakthrough world-music hit with Paul Simon, "Homeless", followed by Miriam Makeba's "Djiguinira", more African pop to finish the set.

Other highlights include the extraordinary Nettle track "Duende: DJ Scud's In Chains remix". Scud turns it into the mutant spawn of hardcore, jungle and reggae, dark and evocative. And it's mixed into Shabba Ranks' "Peanie Peanie", more dancehall... followed by the classic "Bruce Lee MC", credited here to Oddly Godly, although the original track (on Ninja Tune) was, I thought, by someone called Quincy. It's drill'n'bass meets kung fu soundtrack, and what more could you ask for?

And on the second "side", in amongst the chaos, we've got a couple of top remixes: German gltich-idm duo "Funkstörung's Reunited remix" of Wu-Tang Clan (which is mixed out of no less than Armenian oud master Djivan Gasparyan), and Rude Ass Tinker's "U Can't Touch This", from the fabulous Planet µ Allstars "Criminal" 12". The latter is one of various releases from the last year or two to explore illegal remixing in innovative fucked-up digital manners - more reviews of which will be forthcoming from me! Rude Ass Tinker, by the way, is an anagram of Tusken Raiders, one of Mike Paradinas' many pseudonyms - he of href="http://www.planet-mu.com/">µ-ziq fame.

This compilation has been burning through my subconscious and my speakers for months now, and I still can't put it away. Go sample it!