re: Kruder & Dorfmeister's DJ Kicks: remind me to never listen to anything tagged downtempo, even if it's also tagged atmospheric drum 'n' bass.

re: drum & bass: Andy C's Nightlife mix is too bombastic and only rarely danceable enough to make up for it; it's also coated in a layer of proto-brostep douchiness.  

why yes I am getting into token canon d'n'b mixes thanx 4 noticing how tokenist and canon I am :*

re: the canon: King Tubby! wow, he sure is an obvious choice for a kid trying to expand her reggaerizons and fill in the gaps in the Essential Reggae Releases she's heard: Dub Gone Crazy is perfectly fine, but I think I'll have to file it next to King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown under Well This Is Perfectly Adequate But I Don't Really Get Why You Guys All Want to Like Buttfuck It All Day Every Day - I heard its sequel first and dug it and I have the feeling that I'd still prefer it.

Me listening to Reba McEntire's first greatest hits album seems to be a classic example of Hey I Am Going to Show the World How Eclectic and Open-Minded I Am *starts listening to album* Oh God Oh My God What Is Wrong With You People *vomits* except the first two-thirds or so of the record are still obviously a cut above what gets played on country radio nowadays and even with some treacly undernourished arrangements and production, and tons of maudlin weepiness, it's still clearly actual country, with real ties to the genre's golden years and after a few tracks I began to remember how much of a sucker I can be for classic country formulas - that vaguely-witty wordplay and pedal steel backing really does wonders for me in the right mood - and I wonder if I wouldn't truly appreciate country music much more if I didn't associate it with so many ignorant, disgusting people I know - it's not just that they're white: I know no metalheads who listen to anything heavier than Queensryche, I know no one into True Emo, nobody around me listens to modern classical - so those genres aren't tainted with negative associations involving Sarah Palin and chaw and Confederate flag bumper stickers like the omnipresent contemporary country. So if I lived in Belgium, I might wear my Kitty Wells Fan badge with pride, but I just straight-up know too much about the genre's fan base, and I'm just exposed to too much of its utter crap, to really nourish my honky tonk side the way I nourish my BRUTAL side and my NOODLE side. But even towards the end of the album, and there are only ten tracks, the songs start straying further and further away from actual country - the music was always MOR but it starts getting AOR and adult contemporary - it must be symptomatic of the way all of Nashville was going during the mid-80s - the rise of Countrypolitan and so on. And then Reba's SECOND greatest hits comp is just absolute utter goddamn fucking rubbishy shitturds, just unholy anti-music without a single redeeming second. And I downloaded the third, but yeah, I'm not that much of a masochist.           

I was really hoping, after the mesmerizingly bangin' first two tracks on each disk, that Soul Jazz' 100% Dynamite NYC might equal their similar An England Story, my personal favorite v/a comp of all time, pairing as it does, at its best, vintage dancehall style with vintage boom bap drums, but, alas, the highlights are too spread out - of course I've heard the England comp dozens of times, and this one only once, but I don't think any amount of listenings will salvage the Fu-Schnickens track or the grotesquely graphic slackness of the Rayvon and Nikey Fresh songs. It really could've been a wonder if cut in half, though, a real all-time corker. Pooh.

Come Ethiopians by Phillip Frazer is just about the most excruciatingly average roots release I've ever heared - it's like it was created by a roots robot programmed with the intention of creating the most cliched, irrelevant roots reggae record possible, starting with every lyrical trope in the Rasta bag. Meh. and now there's a dub version of the opening cut on this King Tubby comp (Freedom Sounds in Dub)! It's still not very good, but then I'm distinctly underwhelmed by the comp in general.

Naushad's Mughal-E-Azam has these super girly tracks that give me estrogen highs.  

Them Dirty Blues by Cannonball Adderley has a great take on "Dat Dere," one of the catchiest heads in jazz not written by Monk, and Nat's "Work Song" but their Tokyo live album is just wonky and noodly, except for the Trane tribute, which features Yusef Lateef on oboe!

Kano's debut is probably a top, say, fifteen disco album, and probably a top five eighties disco album. Hope their next two stay in the same territory!

And, finally, returning to d'n'b, more or less, Uncle Dug's Rinse mix isn't earth-shattering but it's just immensely enjoyable, partially, probably, just because it's jungle rather than jump-up or ad&b. just love it.