Additional information
Personnel includes: Carl Cox; Joe Watson, Top Cat (vocals); The Malpas Horns. Recorded at Sham Studios, Horsham, England. Carl Cox is often called "the world's best DJ." He has been playing records since the early '70s, when he'd mix his parents' soul seven-inches at dinner parties in his London home. Having grown up around soul, funk, and blues, and having come of age in the thick of England's acid house revolution, Cox is one of few DJs who can truly say that he's lived through all the music he plays. This gives him a familiarity possessed by few DJs. It's also part of the reason for his rise to heights where "world's best" is an acceptable modifier. On PHUTURE 2000, his second solo release but first widely distributed domestic effort, Cox moves from futuristic kung-fu funk ("Black Shaolin") and tribal house to Latin dance ("The Latin Theme") and relentless techno ("Phuture 20000"). It's the latter sound with which Cox has become most recently identified, despite the evidence that his musicality and knowledge take him far beyond the dancefloor. Such eclecticism may be one of the reasons that Cox is not as well known outside the rave circuit as he deserves to be. PHUTURE 2000 is an impressive display of technical mastery and stylistic integration.
Reviews
Q (9/99, p.104) - 3 stars (out of 5) - "...a pacy mix of house tunes that never fall below a certain standard....Situated amid the crowd-pleasers...are bolder tracks such as 'Deeper Mind' with its grainy, warped-out feel, and the spacy acid tones of 'Another Place'..." Muzik (8/99, p.80) - 4 stars (out of 5) - "...all-bases-covered long-player to help you through the inevitable monster comedown, PHUTURE 2000 is surely in for a rotation come January 1st." CMJ (7/12/99, p.25) - "...Cox spices each cut with very different flavors - a heap of techno here, a dash of electro there, a smidgen of salsa for garnish - but uses a base recipie of multi-layered melodies and domineering rhythmic structures to give each song his authentic flavors..."
