Released: 13th September
Reviewed by: Tony Bennett
Skiddle rating: 4/5
The press release that came with the promo copy of FabricLive 53: Drop The Lime immediately points out, in the first line, that Luca (Drop The Lime) is ‘a hard character to pin down’. They pretty much hit the nail on the head. The first time I met the guy, he turned up in all black; black jeans, black shirt, black braces, and a black tie, hair slicked back with the toothpick on the lip, sliding a comb back into his pocket. My initial reaction was ‘Badman!’ He then proceeded to go to the booth and, excuse my French, absolutely rip shit up for almost twice as long as he was supposed to. It was better value than the £1.20 1st class upgrade on the train journey I’m currently on.
Intros and imagery aside, DTL’s FabricLive compilation is no different to the aforementioned French; featuring a collection of tracks released on the Trouble & Bass label, Sony, Dim Mak, Birmingham’s Bigger Than Barry amongst others. There’s bass heavy bangers, Rockabilly classics, new disco and a bit of dubstep. The whole thing is pretty bouncy, almost hypnotic in a way. Through headphones it’s oddly soothing at times, but a full sound system would leave your ears and chest worn out from the deep heavy bass.
As far as mix tapes go, this is up there. It has that feel of longevity. I’ve been listening to it constantly, and can see myself continuing to do so for some time. Everything seems to flow so well throughout; even with the brief rockabilly intermission, it doesn’t feel out of place. I think there could have been one or two more ‘timeless’ tracks on there, or other stuff of early influence like a lot of the other FabricLive editions.
He gives a breakdown of the mix in his own words:
"I start on the deeper side of things, a little bit of techy house and then I go into the future garage sound that’s coming out of London, like Untold, and then I go into my signature heavy bass 4/4 sound into a little bit of Dutch influenced stuff, into some tribal, percussive house tracks... it’s all over the place, but I really tried to build a rollercoaster of a ride. It goes huge, then gets taken back down, and built back up, and really ends beautifully with some ambient stuff."
‘Rollercoaster’ would indeed be the appropriate term. My personal favourites on the compilation are ‘Sex Sax’, Foamo’s ‘Centavo’ and ‘Brrrap!’
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