May 31, 2001
Various : Everything But The Girl: back to mine
just another lifestyle accessory for people too dim, too lazy or too skint to have record collections.
5 / 10
Wimp-house bores' designer soundtrack
No, not Channel Four's All Back To Mine, but 'Back To Mine' - a mix-CD series meant to reflect the weird post-club aural collages previously created by the likes of Danny Tenaglia and Groove Armada. While their mates channel-surf on mute and argue about who?s going to go to the garage, presumably.
Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn's mix, the sixth in the series, is a mildly diverting collection of the good (DJ Cam, Model 500), bad (Beth Orton, Mary Margaret O'Hara) and pleasantly forgettable (Dubtribe Sound System,
Ananda Project). It ends on its one truly interesting moment - assuming you've actually listened to some music in the last ten years - Donny Hathaway's 'Someday We'll All Be Free'.
EBTG describe Hathaway as one of black music's 'unsung heroes', and certainly his contribution drips soul.
But, then, these things aren't meant to be demanding are they? Neither a painstakingly assembled collection of overlooked tracks
nor mixed in such a way as to reinvent its constituent parts, 'Back To Mine', with its funky line-drawings and middle-of-the-road sense of cool, is just another lifestyle accessory for people too dim, too lazy or too skint to have record collections.
Tony Naylor
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