Cut Copy

Live mixes by name DJs have become an increasingly lame cliché, with many of them sounding basically alike: mellow, loungy grooves suitable primarily for drinking mojitos in the bars of trendy boutique hotels. Which is fine, and actually a nice use of what Erik Satie termed music as furniture, but it does mean that once you've heard a couple, you've pretty much heard them all. Fabriclive.29, a live mix by Dan Whitford of the Australian dance trio Cut Copy, is more inventive than most, tempering the usual Euro-disco suspects with unexpected inclusions like Roxy Music's "Angel Eyes," the DFA remix of Goldfrapp's "Slide In," the Faint's new wave revivalist "Your Retro Career Melted," and, most surprisingly, Ciccone Youth's howling 1988 deconstruction of a Madonna hit, "Into the Groovey." The interpolated pop songs not only work well alongside the more standard club tracks (as do the three Cut Copy originals Whitford drops in), they help create a more dynamic and enjoyable listen. Other DJs should listen and learn. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide