Kruder & Dorfmeister Album: “DJ Kicks”

Albeit a decent album, "Dj-Kicks" just has one too many boring and cliched beats. You know what I'm talking about...those generic Roni Size-type grooves that are incessant and repetitive beyond toleration. The layering that K&D does on top of the beats is clever at times, but the foundation of the songs is weak. Although the consensus below is that the album is amazing, don't buy into the hype; it's only mediocre. There are some tight tracks like their remix of T.Corp's "Shaolin Satellite", but the whole of the album bores me. My suggestion is that if you like ambient albums that are also interesting and inventive, "Sessions" is a MUCH better choice. But I suppose if you're into bland beats and lackluster mixing...go for this one.

A class album in both its production and its selection of mixes, "DJ Kicks" shows just how good electronica, drum & bass... whatever you want to call it... can be made to be in skilled hands. Incredibly effective in its sequencing of the complex, multi-layered instrumental & vocal loops that drive most of the selected tracks, and underpinned by some wonderfully deep bass hooks and lock-tight percussion overlays, Kruder & Dorfmeister craft a kaleidoscopic musical journey that just gets better & better with repeat playing. These guys know how to generate "atmosphere" but in the case of "DJ Kicks" they also create something that builds through tracks 1 to 13 into something genuinely "exciting". By track 3 the urge to dance has become irresistible and after a short respite to catch your breath at the start of track 8 we're off again for a further 25 minutes of super-cool club grooves, leaving the more erratic last four tracks as a slight let down, but only because you just want it to keep on going... higher & higher. Time to hit the replay button.

Anyone who gives this less than 5 stars does not know what they are talking about. I've listened to this literally hundreds of times since 97. Most electronic music sounds pretty dated after a few years but this disc is just incredible; amazing tunes in just the right order, perfectly mixed. This disc proves that there is an art to the dj mix and only a few others can even come close to this.

Chilled out and interesting to listen to. Easily became an old favorite for me. I like it most of all the albums I have by K&D, it may be because it feels the most cohesive.

At the risk of sounding out of place, I don't think this CD is as great as some people make it out to be. I am not an avid clubber or party-chiller-out. I like to listen to good music on my personal stereo. As such, I find the selection of tracks quite good, the seamless mixing great, and, yes, quite possibly this disc *is* a benchmark for the DJ Kicks series. But, (you knew that was coming along, didn't you?) some of the original tracks they "tidied up" were not quite creative in the first place. In a lot of cases, the tracks get into a groove and just stick to it. OK, this is great for the grooves that rock, but not so great on the ones that don't. Hey listen, this is a subjective call: my impression changed with time and I grew to like the album more with time, but ultimately it is just a "quite good" collection of dancey-ambient tracks -- for me.