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If you stripped electro down to a goa-lean teflon sheen, mixed in creative and avant-garde sampling, both vocal and otherwise, and pulsed a persistent but deep under the skin beat, you'd probably find yourself next door to Damian Lazarus and Matthew Styles and their mix of strange but ubercompelling tracks spread across this 2-disc set from the Crosstown Rebels label. These tunes inhabit a dark place, much as does goa, but comparison probably stops at atmosphere. As indicated above, this feels more like sleekened minimalist electro, if you had to slap it in a pigeonhole. Which, of course, you really can't. It's experimental, by definition of its outside-the-boxness, but that could conjure false ideas of what you're getting into. Don't doubt: There is plenty of straight up techno infectiousness here; the textures and grooves, once assimilated into your brainwaves, will keep you hooked. It's no great challenge to ride through these two CDs without ever getting bored, though it certainly took massive talent on the part of the mixers and the artists whose tracks they selected for the end result to be such an accessible, groove-laden thing but one that is on the fringe, edgy. -- review by Kristofer Upjohn
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