Chris Coco & Rob Da Bank – The Blue Room (BBC)
October 18th, 2003 by freddie96
One of the great pleasures of music, film and books is being able to experience your favourite artists’ development over a long period of time. Few DJs, however, seem to last the distance – or have the courage to keep changing enough – to enable this kind of relationship to develop.
Chris Coco is an exception to that rule. I’ve been listening to his mixes for some years now, and it’s been quite a voyage of discovery. He’s always had a great ear for great downtempo music, but with his installation inside the Blue Room he seems to have found the perfect forum for a more exploratory style that has taken him far from his roots in Balearic chill-out and beats, plundering folk, dub, electro and Americana – to great effect.
So if the BBC logo and gorgeous sunrise shot on this compilation leads you to imagine it’s going to be driven by commercial considerations, you really couldn’t be more wrong. On the contrary, it’s been a long time since I heard so many new and unexplored artists crammed onto two disks.
Actually, I’ve just gone over the tracklisting and have counted only 7 tracks from the 37 here that are already in my collection – from the likes of Ulrich Schnauss, Ralph Myerz, Flaming Lips, and Chungking. The fact that those are the ‘big names’ should give you a fair indication of just how interesting the rest is. I particularly enjoy the inclusion here of Calexico, The Postal Service, DJ DSL and Harpers Bizarre (the Blue Room makes a habit of digging out old gems, and the few included here are spot on).
Of course this isn't all Chris's doing. Rob da Bank has been developing a parallel career as purveyor of loony midtempo tunes which here proves the perfect foil to the slow burn of the moody, immaculate first disc. As you'll know if you caught him at Eastnor this year, the man is a born entertainer, and his contribution here is very smiley territory indeed. The title 'Penguin Rock', his very own Lazyboy collaboration with Lee 'Scratch' Perry (zanily chanting 'voodoo on George Bush') says it all.
I guess the idea is that you should start playing this double set around four in the morning, so Robbie can bring you gently up with the sunshine and coffee – or whatever – but as far as I'm concerned it makes great listening any time of day or night. All hail to the lords of the Blue Room. They won't rock your body, but they are sure to move you in more subtle ways.
Freddie B.
