Soundtrack To The Future

One glance at the track listing for DJ Hyper’s second Y3K compilation proves what a uniting effect breakbeat has on modern dance music. Numbering producers as diverse as Sasha and Anthony Rother, Hyper’s selection joins the underground with seemingly ‘commercial’ artists to create a deep, often dark, always funky set. It’s not all mean, mechanical stuff though; Way Out West provide some almost angelic melodies and Ashtrax combine spacey trance with a robotic, technoid bass. Despite these lighter moments, the real highlights occur when Hyper opts for the darker side of the breaks sound: Hybrid drag 2 Bad Mice’s hardcore anthem ‘Bombscare’ kicking and screaming into the new millennium, German hotshot Timo Maas teams up with Ian Wilkie to drop a fat, bass heavy monster, Matthew B represents with the acid tinged ‘Net Bugz’, there’s a robo-electro mash up between Anthony Rother and Blim and Sasha completely shatters any lingering fluffy trance perceptions with the nasty, belligerent and utterly brilliant ‘Rabbit Weed’. One of the most aptly named compilations you’ll hear in 2000.