Quiet Life
March 25th, 2002 by freddie96
QUIET LIFE
An Excursion Into The World of Downtempo Grooves
(Debutante)
Judging by the ever-growing racks of chill-out compilations cluttering the high street shops, the music industry has obviously decided that downtempo music is a market worth milking. Sadly, however, there is precious little originality in this area. As 7 magazine moaned the other week, it’s all Moby, ‘Smokebelch’, and Chicane’s ‘Offshore’ (Can’t Believe People Are Still Falling For This Mix).
So hats off to Debutante (part of Universal’s empire) for trying something a little different with ‘Quiet Life’, a ransacking of the company vaults that stretches further back than the early Ibiza years. Certainly it contains little that is too obvious or over-familiar, including as it does Scott Walker, John Martyn, Tears for Fears and U.F.O., although Gregory Isaacs’ ‘Night Nurse’ (Cottonbelly remix) and the Cocteau Twins’ ‘Cherry Coloured Funk’ (Seefeel remix) have both been round the block a couple of times in recent years.
To some extent this eclectic combination of talents gives ‘Quiet Life’ something of a sampler feel, as the separate talents represented here don’t really make for a completely smooth ride. You can’t help feeling they should have drafted someone like the Big Chill’s very own Pete Lawrence – or Bruce Bickerton, say – to create a more fluent mix of old and new.
Certainly it takes its time to find its groove. The compilation opens, impeccably, with Wasis Diop’s ‘Dune’ but then switches into the very bland MOR-ish ‘Where’s Your Love Been’ from Heliocentric World, and the rather poppy ‘Blanket’ from Urban Species. There follows a somewhat offbeat trio of remixed David Holmes, Howie B and U.N.K.L.E. tracks – and then it gets a whole lot better, with a sequence that moves through Tears for Fears, Scott Walker and John Martyn’s ‘Small Hours’, the last being a truly outstanding track, before closing with the Cocteaus, Antiloop, Bugge Wesseltoft and U.F.O..
A bit of a curate’s egg, then, but a welcome change from the Café del Ibiza formula. FB
