Lee Coombs needs no introduction to the breaks fans out there. This man has, along with Adam Freeland, DJ Hyper and Tayo, taken the remains of the broken bigbeat sound and moulded them into the newest, sexiest sound to come out of England. This Perfecto mix showcases Coombs incredible mixing ability, taking tunes and re-editing and remixing them to form his own defining style of “tribal beats” through his various remixes and tunes, scattered amongst some excellent tune by dance music’s greatest producers.
The beats starts stomping right from the beginning with Coombs’ remix of Lamb, which integrates seamlessly with 2 Men On A Trip, a collaboration between Coombs and Meat Katie, an awesome acidic tribal beat fest. Then the rather New Order / Electronic sounding tune No Ticket No Run by Santos surprises the listener by throwing guitars into the mix. Coombs then throws his weight behind Danny Sullivan and Kemist’s Snake Charmer, with an eerily familiar sample I can’t quite place running through it.
The mix takes a marked change into the techno sound, with record label mates Soul of Man’s Dirty Waltzer, along with Coombs’ own tune Tekno Meltdown. The addition of Joey Beltram’s rave classic Energy Flash reworked with samples and beats synonymous to Coombs produces a wonderful aural explanation of the term “future retro”, so commonly associated with Coombs’ style of breaks. But it doesn’t stop there; as Rollin, another of Coombs’ tunes, is brilliantly combined with Moby’s classic rave hit I Feel It. The fantastic tribal beats pound perfectly over the lyrical reminders of the golden age of rave music, when Moby produced music that wasn’t derivative tripe.
Yet another classic tune, Jam the Mace by House Syndicate, follows in the Coombs style, brilliantly overlaid with the “ecstasy” sample of Energy Flash. “Look ahead while the crowd is pumping” the lyric waxes, while the beats wane into the housier sounds of Joe Smooth and Djum Djum that finish off the mix superbly. This is one of those CD’s that truly cross the boundaries of contemporary dance music, and leave you comfortable in the knowledge that there’s still DJ’s out there who want to push the envelope further.