Album Review

Hercules And Love Affair – DJ Kicks

• 1st Nov 2012

Taking the helm of the latest DJ Kicks mix is New York based DJ Andy Butler in his guise as DFA affiliated Hercules and Love Affair, who wowed critics with his debut album, a shimmering nu-disco masterpiece released in 2008.

But those who may expect the disco leanings of that album to surface on this mixtape will be sorely disappointed, instead it takes in far more of Butler’s love of House music across the 1 hour and 5 minutes running time.

And indeed, hardly being a connoisseur of the U.S branded House movement, I felt much of this DJ mix lacked anything I could truly connect with, having spent my own youth growing up on the more saccharine stylings of UK Garage, before following my own tastes along to multiple and varied dance music offshoots that have succeeded it.

To me, the ever consistent beat is too repetitive and far from inspiring, a handful of familiar samples snatched from the seventies, eighties and nineties grab the attention briefly, but ultimately fall by the wayside far too quickly, a short number of individual tracks prick up the ears on occasions, but suffer greatly from sounding far too similar to the track that precedes it and the track that follows in each and every instance.

The result is somewhat like staring out of the window on a long and monotonous train ride, the thump-thumping of the beat taking the place of the clack-clacking of tracks and the few choice songs that cause a slight stir are the distracting moments worth looking out the window for as you journey across a barely changing landscape.

Venue: DJ Kicks
Support Band: !K7