Office Listening: Riva Starr Essential Mix

Riva Starr was seemingly plucked out of nowhere by Dirtybird in 2007 (he had in fact previously been breakbeat producer Madox), but he really arrived a couple of years later with the crossover smash 'I Was Drunk', featuring lovable techno rogues Noze.

We've been returned to the Essential Mix he put out off the back of it recently (listen above) - it still stacks up today as unashamedly fun, just like all his productions.

This mix gets the hammer down right from the off, and it just doesn't let up. If anything it's too much for office listening because it's very difficult to sit still while listening to it. Riva smacks you in the face with Bucketheads' 'The Bomb' and Lil Louis 'French Kiss' in the first twenty minutes, but like most tracks in the mix, only a short burst of them before he splices something else into proceedings.

One track he does let play in all its glory is Adam Port & Sante's 'OWN' (below) which is a great shout - it's just so darn catchy, and very Riva Starr in the sense that it's just a bloody good sample repeated unashamedly. No messin' about, good house music - that's him.

Half an hour in is where it goes fully nuts, and has the finest DJ work of the whole mix in our opinion. Hear him larking about with an acapella over the top of his own track 'Jump', before proceeding to slam in his remix of 'Theme From S-Express'. Carnage!

The rest of the mix carries on in the same relentless vein. Watch out for contributions from all manner of folk, from Daft Punk to Claude VonStroke, and The Doors all the way up to Inner City. Many of them his own brilliant edits.

As much as Riva Starr appeared to come out of nowhere, it is thankful that he has not disappeared back there as quickly. He is still very much alive and kickin', getting the party started with his sets all round the world (catch him at the next Uber in Carlisle on August the 24th), and last year he reminded the commercial public of his catchy appeal with the Fatboy Slim collab, 'Eat Sleep, Rave, Repeat'.

With Armand Van Helden's move towards EDM and Todd Terry's quietness on the production front, we consider Riva the new king of the house sample.

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