Rugged Saturday radio is the first CD release by Audio Research, founded by Montreal’s DJ A-Trak, and is designed to showcase the record labels’ unique talents. Mixed by 3 times consecutive winner of the DMC world champion mixing competitions Craze, who also forms part of the Allies with A-trak, with this release we have a true definition of the word “mix”. DJ Craze’s mixing style is magnificent – he adds scratches between records, between chorus’s, between breaks, and they’re not just random, but often feature vocal elements of the previous or up-coming tune.

But not only does this CD act a platform for Craze’s skills as a DJ, but also highlights some of the best hiphop to come out of Canada and the USA. And, once again, it shows that there is more to this kind of music than bling bling and booty. Beginning with a Craze intro that contains the cheeky sample “let’s show you how this rap shit’s ‘sposed to be”, it breaks down into Obscure Disorder’s 2004, a typical lyrical hiphop battle hymn with awesome scratching by A-Trak. A snapshot of the world of hiphop follows with DJ Serious’ Snakes, and the mix continues the serious tone with D-Shade’s Space & Time, Simahlak’s Under Pressure, DJ Serious and Nish Rawks’ Frostbite, and D-Shade vs. D-Styles’ Like that Chall Freestyle.

After this, the tone is made a little lighter with Serious and D-Sisive’s Popped, an awesome rhyme about how they “can’t take it no more; this whole industry is pop”. With lyrics talking about abusing P-Diddy’s limo, and calling bomb threats to Hanson’s tour bus, it’s simple in its rhyme but clever in its reason. Troy Dunnit’s Mindblowin and Obscure Disorder’s Back To The Lab follow, and then the best tracks on the mix come Troy Dunnit’s Not Gangsta and Ill Bill’s Cult Leader. Not Gangsta is surprisingly, not gangster, but is one hell of a tough tune, with phat beats and bassline. Cult Leader is similarly tough, and Craze’s scratching of “cult leader” samples great in its subtlety.

The Grill, by Obscure Disorder is a similar to the Avalanches with it’s 70’s vocal stab, and the mix is rounded off nicely by D-Styles featuring Q-Bert, Babu and Melo-D with the A-Trak Remix of Felonious Funk. The scratching on this track, is needless to say, remarkable, and it’s impossible to tell where the track has scratching and where Craze adds to it. This is a fantastic way to introduce the world to Audio Research– it’s ridiculously sublime the way the scratches interact with the tunes, the way the tunes are weaved into one another, and it shows that hiphop is still alive and well in the States.