- The crew responsible for bringing the breaks sound to the forefront of the underground dance scene in Sydney, Fuzzy has called upon Australia's favourite international DJ, Krafty Kuts (according to our own DMA awards) and one of Sydney's best, Q45, to mix up a double CD filled with a tasty selection of breakbeat and hip hop layered with some familiar acapellas, bootlegs and of course new tracks from the mixers involved.
CD 1 - Krafty Kuts CD:
The last mix CD that Krafty Kuts did was the Mixmag cover CD and the last mix he did available from stores was Slam The Breaks On Vol 2. That was well over a year or two ago, so it's been a long wait for Krafty fans to hear his mixing style. He kicks things off with a cut & paste intro which Krafty seems to do everytime he puts out a mix CD and when he performs live as well. Hip hop is the flavour of the day when he starts his mix and Kitty Bronx's Solid Feet is the perfect choice - scratched up, bass heavy, head nod hip hop with a synth line you can hum along to and it gets stuck in your head. KK then treats us to his hip hop/cut'n'paste style which he does with A.Skillz on Ain't It Funky - a James Brown/old skool 70's flavoured hip hop tune - and Trika Technology featuring partner in crime TC. Izlam, of which the instrumental version has been going down well in Sydney clubs for the past 6 months.
Upping the tempo and controlling the beat, Mr. Kuts treats us to a little old skool electro flavour with What's Up At The Brotherfront before funking it up with some house with Mousse T's Fire. From here on, he leaves the hip hop side of things in his crate to mainly concentrate on his nu-skool breaks and 2-step side.
Soul Of Man's newie Acid Punch is a sweet concoction of bassy, acid house which nicely compliments Forme's Kick A Hole, Koma & Bones' remix of X-Press 2's Smoke Machine, gets dark and dirty before Krafty rips into one of his new compositions - the Stetsasonic sampling Rip U Apart. Stereo 8's Groove Diggin' is an absolute monster of a tune - old skool samples, funky bassline and some nice breakdowns throughout - as with a lot of Fingerlickin tunes, it should stand the test of time and be labelled an anthem.
An acappella of Masters At Work's Work is layered over Meat Katie's My Little Dancing Girl to create an interesting remix that would surprise a fair few listeners out there, however the thumping bass line of Dancing Girl seems to compliment the ragga style vocals on Work. Personally, I feel Dancing Girl is played a little too fast, when compared to how Meat Katie played it on Beyond The Darkness, the slower speed and lower pitch seem to suit it better and give it a little more punch.
For hard nu-skool breaks and 2-step, look no further than Aquasky & Masterblaster whose Shadow Breaks (I think it's a mash up of classic Moving Shadow tunes done in breakbeat tempo) and their remix of Omni Trio's Renegade Snares both make an appearance and represent the harder edge of Krafty Kuts breaks spectrum.
Rounding things off with KK's mix is his own Supercharged/Against The Grain label selection starting off with the thundering bass of Loud Noise, moving onto Raw As Fuck's No Replica featuring Million Dan, which is actually a vocal version of Demon Beats which was released mid-2002 with Punks on the flip, and lastly Soundboy's Face Off which is from a new artist on the label.
To finish it all off, S.C.A.M. (the new guise for the Freestylers own Matt and Aston, along with two others) give up another new tune for the mix - Feel It - probably Krafty's message to all listeners of his mix "Can you feel it?"
CD 2 - Q45's CD:
Q45's mix is a tried and tested selection of tunes that he's been dropping in the clubs for a while now, incorporating some funky ass tunes, his bootleg mixes which seem to work and his own composition as well.
He's well known for pulling out the ragga stylee and his intro is no different - ragga stabs and vocal samples along with an MC introducing him (I'm pretty sure it's MC Antic). Q45 then hits you with his Q45 Weekend Rush remix of Black Eyed Peas Weekends with Reflex's Put Your Hands Up - what a tune! The beat is so funky it can hold it's own, however you can't go past the BEP's party flavoured hip hop style and lyrics you can sing to.
Drumattic Twins' Feeling Kinda Strange has been given heavy rotation on Triple J and is definitely another Fingerlickin anthem, so as a testament to Fuzzy breaks parties where it gets his fair share of rotation, it makes for a good inclusion in this mix.
Q45 unleashes yet another bootleg mix up, this time it's an acappella of Kosheen's Hide U mixed with The Antidote by The Stanton Warriors. Interesting mix, however I can't get past the fact that Hide U sounds a little out of tune with the Antidote, and lowering the vocals by a semitone or a full tone would allow the two tunes to fuse together sweetly. That said, this is a mix CD and it's nice to hear things done "block party style" ie blending two records together without any (or too much) computer enhancement involved.
Here's the interesting part of the mix, Q45 grabs a small slice of the arpeggio line from the Antidote and loops it over and over, slowing it down to hip hop tempo, slow enough to bring in Eric B & Rakim's Paid In Full (Coldcut's Seven Minutes Of Madness Remix). TUNE! I may have been too young to go to clubs when this song was released, however 15 years down the track it still rocks, and is championed by DJ's in all genres - hip hop, house, breaks, drum'n'bass etc. Once the "madness" is finished, the arpeggio loop from the Antidote is re-introduced into the mix and then sped back up again to breaks tempo, before bringing back the Hide The Antidote bootleg mix.
I can't stop raving about Meat Katie's Cum Shot (the tune that is), it's one hell of a hard thumping tune and it was Tom (Q45) that got me into the track in the first place so it's good to hear it in the mix. The Latina Mix of Vigi & Zero's Ultra-Funk is on that carnivale breaks tip and should start up a new sub-genre in the breaks spectrum. Mardi-gras-step? Possibly! It's definitely one to get the crowd moving on the dancefloor.
Q45's own composition, Shabby Chic is an interesting mixture of bouncy 2-step beats with plenty of techy elements on top, and it follows on nicely from Aquasky vs Masterblaster's Soundbwoy, ragga-tinged breakstep from one of the pioneers of the scene.
Criminal Element Orchestra's Put The Needle To The Record has been a Fuzzy staple tune ever since it was released, so it makes for another good inclusion, however I urge any trainspotters to check out the original version if they can find it - it's dope! Following on from that, Q45 mixes in an interesting breaks version of Jon Cutler's It's Yours before ripping into the FreQ Nasty-esque Dance With Me by Sydney's own Bass Kleph.
Speaking of classics, Teebone's Fly-Bi has to be classed as one and those who were at the Freestylers gig at the Greenwood in 2001 would remember that it was played around 4 times that day, and speaking of the Freestylers, their London Sound comes in next and reminds everyone exactly where this sound originated from.
To finish things off, De La Soul with their disco hip-hop classic A Rollerskating Jam Named Saturday. If you don't know it by now then get this CD.
After some very successful events at Sydney's Metro, including two sell out Krafty Kuts Winter Breaks, Fuzzy Breaks volume 1 is a testament to the effort that the Fuzzy crew have put into bringing breaks to the forefront of dance music in Sydney, featuring the tunes that have made the fuzzy events so popular in the past and some new tunes to make the events even better in the future.