- 10 years is definitely a long time to keep a summer festival completely dedicated to dance music running and have people and artists coming back for more and more each time. The Big Day Out festival celebrates all forms of music (including dance) and had to take a hiatus around 96-98 due to lack of venues. In fact, Norman Jay himself keeps making regular visits to these shores, both eastern and western, for his yearly Vibes fix. So what better way to celebrate a 10 year anniversary than by releasing a double CD of the tunes which made the festival so memorable? Certainly, there can be nothing better right? Possibly!
Opening up the compilation with Ian Pooley's Bay Of Plenty - summer cocktail house to set the mood, the first CD is chock full of classics such as X-Press 2's Lazy (which you get the whole 9 minutes of!), Groove Armada's Superstylin', The Wiseguys' Ooh La La, Moloko's Sing It Back, last year's headliner Jamiroquai offers up You Give Me Something and Deee Lite's Groove Is In the Heart, a track which 10 years after it's release still causes mayhem on the dancefloor.
Stereo Deluxe seems to be a firm favourite label for Vibes especially with their artists focusing on creating latin based percussion heavy grooves laden with funk. Mo'Horizons appear twice on this compilation with Yes Baby Yes opening up the second CD. Other Stereo Deluxe offerings are Trio Electrico's Return Of The Coconut Groove and Bobby Hughes Combination's Moogjuus - a flute laden tune with a subtle jazz influence.
CD 2 celebrates a bit more of the new breaks sound with the Freestylers and the king of soulful UK garage MJ Cole on Crazy Love.
Good to see that they support the local artists as well, with DMA winner Katalyst representing the Sydney hip hop scene with Race Against Time, The Rockmelons, Wicked Beat Sound System's latest effort Brand New Day and ex-D.I.G. members in EON doing their live jazz thing on Dos Por Favor.
While this is meant to be a celebration CD, many of the tunes available on this nicely packaged double CD are easily available on other CD's and some can also be found together in the same compilation as well.
This would be the perfect compilation for someone who is a regular Vibes attendee and that doesn't buy CD's at the same time.