Cut / Copy Fabric 29

Sunday I decided to do something a little bit different; instead of looking at a track from the top hundred, I checked out a mix, Fabric live 29 by Cut Copy. 

I picked this mix from cut copy for 4 main reasons. 

First, Cut / Copy seems to have credibility with RA, they have one of the top hundred albums of all of the 2000s. 

Secondly, and the many indie rock fans will appreciate this, Cut / Copy also seems have credibility with pitchfork.  In Ghost Colors was their top 4th album in 2008. 

Institutional concerns aside, the two main reasons I picked this mix versus other mixes was that it featured a few songs I wanted to hear. There was a techno remix of a Faint song that I like, so I was interested to see how that sounded. There was also a song by Allison Goldfrapp, who provides guest vocals on one of my favorite songs, so I'm generally interested in hearing some of her solo work. 

I liked the mix, but ironically, not for either of the songs I expected to. The Faint remix went in a totally different direction than the original, and the Goldfrapp remix was unexciting. 

That said, overall, the mix was surprisingly good. On a music review website, there will be everything on the site, then a subset that the site actively plugs or promotes (eg best new music), and among those a few albums will be truly great. This is not one of the truly greats, but its better than the median plugged album and so its worth checking out if you would check out something that gets plugged. 

The songs towards the front half of the mix are a little slower and sometimes a bit less interesting than the back half, but several are still good and worth hearing.  The mix really gets going about a third in when it speeds up and starts using shorter cuts (1-3 minutes averaging 2) between songs. Once it gets rolling the mix has a great flow to it with high energy and really nice transitions so that it feels like a long constantly evolving song rather than a bunch of tracks. I'd say the high point of the mix is "the acid never lies" and the songs immediately surrounding it, but the effect there will be better in context. 

If you don't have time for the whole album, you could probably start at Face to Face (track 10) and listen through Omega man, although you would miss some good stuff that way. 

Either way, check out the mix, make sure it's playing in order not on shuffle, listen to it while doing something active and high energy, and play somewhat loud.