Daniel Haaksman - Rambazamba

Daniel Haaksman, meet Basement Jaxx. No, please, Daniel Haaksman, go and meet Basement Jaxx. And ask them a lot of questions about what to do with world music. With Rambazamba (German slang for 'mayhem') the Berlin DJ/label owner makes a big, bold attempt to turn the dance floor into a global party, just the way the south London party crew did. Trouble is, he takes a world of ear-enticing source material - Brazilian baile funk, stomping balkan beats, sinuous middle eastern jazz - then bludgeons them to death under banging 4/4 western dance rhythms. Basement Jaxx's joyous pick and mix approach meant they could throw everything from Siouxsie Sioux to south American samba into their sonic blender, and the whole thing would come out reconfigured as a genre-busting, booty-shaking floor-filler. Haaksmaan favours a more basic approach, involving programming a pounding beat, then flavouring it with one or two constantly repeated samples. It's a high energy strategy but, while no one disputes his passion, it gets monotonous after a few tracks. The irony is, he's had a world of rhythm to play with, yet he frequently resorts to stripping down his sample sources to brief snatches of melody. The key to enjoying this is selectivity. Pepper your party iPod mix with the frenetic, parping 'Dubchek' (which features brass band mayhem from Serbia's Boban Markovic Orkestar), or the feline 'Strut Oriental' (with the Cairo Jazz Orchestra) and it'll help propel your night into a new dimension. Play the whole thing back-to-back and the Jive Bunnyish rhythmic monotony means you'll end up with nothing but a headache.

Track Listing:-

1 Vinheta
2 Jesus
3 Pobum Coco
4 Copabanana
5 Hands Up
6 Dubcheck
7 Angola Galopp
8 Strut Oriental
9 Sum Sum
10 Senta Senta
11 Kewok
12 Carnaval
13 Din Daa Daa
14 Bomba
15 El Gitarro
16 Berlin Brega